


He Who Holds the Devil

by shotgunsinlace



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Body Horror, Bottom Will Graham, Cannibalism, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark Will Graham, Dream Sex, Explicit Sexual Content, Fairy Tale Undertones, Horror, Infanticide, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Monster sex, Nightmares, Other, Slow Build, Supernatural Elements, in a way.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-05-13 19:45:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 51,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5714899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shotgunsinlace/pseuds/shotgunsinlace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A missing persons case turned homicide sends the FBI overseas, to a grisly scene at the foothills of a medieval castle. A decades old mystery slowly unravels into a complicated web of things best considered unreal, and left untouched. At the center of it, Will Graham bears the burden of madness and suspicion when all roads lead, inexplicably, back to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Not Too Close

**Author's Note:**

> Tags will be updated accordingly, and warnings will be added at the beginning of chapters when needed. This will be dark, very dark, so I advise you proceed with caution. 
> 
> Beta'd by the lovely [capricorniohash](http://capricorniohash.tumblr.com/)!

The radiant field on that late autumn day slips from sight, giving way to foggy darkness only broken by a heavy moon hidden behind thin wisps of clouds. No splotches of silver illuminate the tall grass nor the mouth of the forest, but it’s light enough to see across the sweeping expanse of the castle grounds.

Fountains wrapped in ivy. Tombstones weathered and decayed with age. The crumbling facade of a greenhouse that has long been left unattended, its windows broken, the building stripped bare. 

Along the side of a nearby mountain, a sprawling fortress centuries old.

The pendulum swings.

Wind whistles through blades and branches, scattering fireflies with each crunch made by boots over cooling earth. A hum permeates the air, sweet in its melody, adorned by curious laughter.

The night is still until it isn’t. The suspended feeling of disbelief, of fancy, is interrupted by a dark flash of red and a streak of green.

Grass bends and dry leaves crumble, laid to rest in waiting for the coming winter. The trees stir with the echo of voices, a soft intonation of adventurous youth in the pursuit of a thrill.

The beat of a metronome counts down as the pendulum swings one more time, exposing a single shape that shouldn’t be out this late, dancing wildly in the dim moonlight.

She’s alone in this dark and he knows it, despite evidence that suggests otherwise. The girl reaches for someone he can’t see, someone who isn’t there, but that’s of little importance. She stands near the tree especially fitted for her, with its iron spikes jutting out and waiting to be warmed by unblemished skin.

It takes little effort to subdue her, rendering her unconscious in order to change her into a white gown - handsewn, silk, old, but clean. It requires considerably more effort to pick up her pliant body and impale it over the spikes, blossoms of black adding the last poignant details of her dress.

Her dark hair cascades over narrow shoulders, framing her pale face as she slowly bleeds out, thick rivulets slipping down her legs, dripping from her toes and onto cursed ground.

She’s beautiful in her innocence, almost sweet. 

Lastly, he crowns her with a garden snake. 

Her gentle sobs are a song reminiscent of ancient folktales.

Although unworthy of veneration, she deserves to be admired, to be looked upon as a beacon, as an invitation. The first event of many that are soon to follow, because it is finally time to weave the story.

Let it be a fairy tale.

This is his design.

***

“Will, what do you see?” Jack Crawford looms over him, bundled up in his coat and wearing the twenty hour trip over his face.

A dozen or so people are scattered across the field, poking and prodding for evidence with sour looks and mumbled complaints. Most of them stare at Will out of the corner of their eyes, likely bugged at having been forced to witness him doing his _thing_. He had asked for privacy, but, outside of Jack’s team, no one had been willing to step aside and let a foreigner take the reins. 

“Nothing local law enforcement hasn’t already reported,” he says, slipping gloved hands into his jacket’s pockets. Winter is yet to settle in, but a premature chill is heavy in the air. “She was still alive when he hung her up.”

“Why do we always have to assume it’s a he?” A camera flash follows the question, the woman asking stepping between them for no other reason than to diffuse the hostility rolling off Will in waves. “I’ve seen some ladies haul some impressive weight around. Pretty sure our vic is light enough as is.”

“Lifting her isn’t the problem.” Will retreats a handful of steps, feeling the immediate space become too crowded. “Eight spikes, none of them particularly sharp. The amount of force required to get her impaled on all of them in a vertical position is…difficult.”

“Two people, then?”

“No, just one.”

She circles the tree, snapping picture after picture before the body is removed. “Well, if that’s the case, no one’s found any evidence of any _one_ person in the surrounding area. The only footprints that were found matched hers.”

“Positive ID?”

“Marissa Schurr,” Jack confirms with a grim set to his eyebrows. “It’s her. Katz, if you’d be so kind.” At her nod, he directs his attention to the other two people trying to navigate their way through a language barrier. “Price, Zeller.”

Breaking away from a failing conversation and walking towards them, Zeller holds up a hand, “Which means the case is pretty much open and shut. Everybody pack up and let’s get the hell out of here.” He jerks his thumb in the direction of the police that are combing the area for a third time. 

Beside him, Jimmy Price nods his agreement. “Pretty sure these guys got it covered.”

Wanting to take the first plane back to America is a sentiment even Will shares. Never one to wander too far from his homestead, he feels out of his element in the lack of jurisdiction his team has. He can handle Canada’s frost and Mexico’s grueling heat, his Spanish rusty but good enough to get him out of a pinch. Lithuania, however, is well out of his reach of comfort.

“This girl’s been missing three years,” Jack says, turning his attention back to Will. “What are the odds that she shows up here, like this?” He points to the corpse as if anyone is capable of ignoring it. “An ocean and a continent away from home. This doesn’t feel open and shut.”

Will agrees with the observation, but the limited information he has doesn’t give him much to go on. He’ll have to go through the autopsy report, and he’ll have to scour through any source of information the local authorities might have gathered. Airport security, hotel cameras, the like.

“Regardless,” Price says, pointing in the direction of the greenhouse a few yards away, “either Lass has a hidden talent for languages, or our suspect is fluent in more than just Lithuanian. She doesn’t look too happy about being questioned.”

Less of a suspect and more of a potential eyewitness, the young woman Miriam Lass interviews looks far more out of place than any of them. The severity on her face rivals Jack’s own, but there’s a hint of impassiveness that doesn’t sit well with Will. It’s not defensiveness, but she hadn’t been very understanding when the police remarked on having to escort her off the property.

“You think she might have something to do with this?”

“I don’t know, Jack. I’m not the one interviewing her,” Will says. It’s unlikely, but she did have a rifle slung across the shoulders when the the local PD arrived on the scene. She may just be a hunter, considering the property’s incredible size and the good chunk of woodland that covers most of it. Elk shouldn’t be too hard to come across.

Miriam relies heavily on her hands to get the point of her meaning across, her face shifting to express what her words cannot. Their eyewitness shakes her head time and time again, barely talking herself and occasionally looking back over her shoulder at the massive fortress nearly swallowed up by greenery.

The investigation will be an uphill battle due to the location and the language barrier, and Will knows Jack well enough to understand this won’t be cut short. Their team won’t be leaving until they have a definitive explanation for Marissa Schurr’s death, which means they’ll need to head out and find more permanent lodgings.

“She looks like a very suspicious character if you ask me,” Zeller notes, giving Will a sideways glance. “I know this is all extremely weird already, but this feels _weird_. Alfred Hitchcock weird.”

In a delayed motion, Will pulls out his glasses from his jacket pocket at the sight of Miriam returning to them. 

She’s a mask of hard professionalism, more so than the rest of the Behavioural Analysis Unit. As the newest member on their team, she has gone above and beyond in trying to prove that Jack had not made a mistake when he decided to sign her on ahead of time. So far, so good. Will likes her enough, mostly because she doesn’t ask unnecessary questions or prod at subjects that belong outside the work environment. It’s a nice balance when Katz stands on the opposite side of that spectrum.

“Well,” she starts, planting her hands on her hips when she stops in front of Jack, “from what I could get out of her, she was on the grounds during the time of the incident because she lives there.”

“She doesn’t look like a squatter,” Katz says. “Pretty sure that coat’s a Burberry.”

“According to her, she’s the unofficial groundskeeper and has been for the past twenty years or so.”

“No alibi then.” Jack looks to Will in search of an answer, turning away when he doesn’t get one. “We can’t take her into custody unless we have something solid.”

“If the job’s unofficial, there has to be a reason for it. Maybe she’s related to someone, lost a bet?” Price says, watching the woman stalk off into a denser area of the field. “Might be worth looking into.”

“Whatever the reason, she kept shaking her head regardless of what I was asking.”

Jack nods, unsatisfied. “All right. We keep a close eye on this place. Nobody breathes without my knowing about it.”

“You got it, Boss.”

Will doesn’t watch them pile out, opting instead to stare at the mouth of the nearby forest. Broad daylight can’t penetrate the darkness beyond the threshold, keeping the secret of who killed Marissa Schurr locked deep within. 

It’s a convenient place, one he would choose himself were he to commit a crime that needed cover. Isolated, with hundreds of acres stretching out in every direction, the property feels above the mundane planes of the country.

Walking away, Will can almost feel dozens of eyes gazing at him from the treeline. All lives that have been extinguished before their time, cut down for a wide variety of reasons Will has to go and think about.

***

The plate of appetizers that is slipped onto the table by a too-bright waitress looks like nothing Will would ever deliberately put into his mouth, and he doesn’t consider himself to be a picky eater. Whatever rests in the shape of a swirl on top of the square crackers moves, sprinkled with something resembling crushed mint.

The amused twist on the waitress’ face says they’re not the first foreigners to be overwhelmed by the local cuisine. She lets them know that the morsels are very delicious if they chase it down with their signature handcrafted brew. No one believes her, but they go for it anyway when Price reminds them that the food is going on Jack’s bill. 

Jack had passed on the opportunity to partake in the cultural feast in order to go through records at the police department. Will would have preferred to go with him, but Beverly had been quick at roping him in and dragging him along.

A bleak town in an already bleak country doesn’t offer much on the nightlife front. Hotels are scarce and restaurants more so, each establishment holding onto the old school charm to draw in whatever tourists wander down the cobblestone streets.

Shady accommodations and questionable room service have brought them here, to a pub that stands atop a small hill overlooking the moors. At night the building stands like a single star across the inky black canvas of night.

It’s small and quaint, lit only by a single light fixture over the bar and gas lamps along the walls. Heavy cast-iron pots and pans hang from the ceiling, adding to the rustic decor that stands on the shelves spread unevenly about. There is an unlit fireplace with a stag head mounted over the mantel.

“Tastes like…,” Zeller starts before stopping to gag, reaching for his beer to chase down the flavor. “Doesn’t taste _bad_. The consistency is just way too off for me.”

“You’re weak.” Beverly reaches for her own share and stares Zeller down while popping it into her mouth. Her nose scrunches in distaste, but she chews and swallows with more grace than anyone on the table could have mustered. “It wiggles all the way down your throat.”

“Not the first time I’ve heard that, but it’s definitely the first time I’ve heard it in relation to food.” This comes from Miriam, and it startles a laugh from the booth they’ve taken in a dark corner of the pub.

Even Will, squished as he is between Price and Zeller, hides a snort behind his fist.

He can think of a dozen places he would rather be, away from the boisterous laughter and constant hum of chatter that fills the spaces of his mind like white noise. The contrast abuses his senses, and he’s still too jet-lagged to pretend that he’s having a marvelous time. Although, the company could be worse, so he at least counts that as a small victory.

There are folders in his hotel room filled with photographs taken by Beverly, and while they hold the same gruesome image he experienced earlier in person, he’s anxious to get to them. Even if taking in a crime scene three dimensionally is easier to see and break apart, pictures offer a frozen moment in time, the same way victims are frozen until they’re put in the ground to rot and decay.

Eyes closed and hands touching the glossy finish, Will can immerse himself and climb through the hidden layers he failed to see the first time. He has a very long night ahead of him, and drinking himself stupid isn’t going to make that easier.

His absence from the ongoing conversation is what leads him to notice the person approaching their table first, a bottle of scotch in hand and a neatly folded rag draped over his forearm. Their waitress follows, carrying over five glasses.

“On the house,” the man announces, settling the bottle down and giving them all a charming smile. “It’s tradition to serve the best liquor on shelf for luck.” He pops the cap before any of them can so much as speak. “I, personally, don’t believe in little fae folk that drop gold coins into the jars of polite hosts, but I do trust in dastardly wasted tourists leaving behind a good tip.”

The drinks are served and passed around without preamble, Will cradling his glass between his fingers. He isn’t tipsy yet, but he can see himself getting there before the night is through whether he wants to or not. Thinking about the deplorable conditions of his hotel room makes him reconsider the earlier notion about staying sober anyways.

“Antony’s the name,” the man continues, all pearly white teeth and a smooth accent that makes Price straighten up beside him. “Full-time bartender of this little joint, occasional cook, wandering poet, and student of humankind.”

Miriam is the first to introduce herself when his eyes fall briefly on her. Her posture is easy and welcoming, but not at all open. They shake hands, setting off a chain reaction in which they all do the same.

Will keeps his sight on the man’s shoulder when it’s his turn and doesn’t smile. Meeting and socializing with strangers is the lowest item in an impossibly long list of activities in which he dislikes to partake.

Antony shakes his hand, but makes no remark at Will’s disinterest.

“What’s a gentleman like you doing working at a place like this?” Beverly asks, and it’s invitation enough to get him reaching for a spare chair from the unoccupied table next to theirs.

He spins and straddles it, rests his forearms along the back and squints at them with staged curiosity. “You know, Miss Beverly, I rarely ever play twenty questions with guests. Mostly because my Lithuanian is rubbish, but also because they don’t quite catch my attention. Unlike you lot.”

“And what about us caught your attention? If I may be so bold to ask,” Zeller says, refilling his glass before turning to do the same to Will’s own.

“This is a good place,” he starts off with a shrug. “Lovely view of the Baltic sea stirs up the creative juices.” His grin would be infectious, if Will were one to easily succumb to that sort of thing. “Crime rate is low, which is why I decided on taking an extended leave here. You never hear about break-ins, people getting shot in the streets; hell, I think there’s no such thing as road rage in this country. The works.” Antony looks back over his shoulder conspiratorily, thumb tapping the back of the chair. “It’s a small town and word spreads fast. When a murder as grizzly as this one is delivered onto your doorstep, well.”

“We can’t talk about it,” Will says, cutting the conversation off before it gets the chance to bud. He will never question the professionalism of his team, but he’s seen people become pinned into the position of feeling the need to share information. By his side, Zeller agrees.

Beverly gives him a bemused look. “Easy there, Graham. Guy’s just trying to be friendly.”

“Freddie Lounds is friendly,” he says, bringing back to memory every dreadful encounter with the tabloid journalist.

“Excuse our friend,” she tells Antony, twisting in her chair to better face him, and dismissively waving a hand in Will’s direction. “He’s still a little cranky from the long flight.”

“I take no offense.” Antony keeps his eyes on Will, his smile dimmed to something more genuine. “I understand that what you are doing requires discretion; I won’t press. I just wanted to know if the rumors were true.”

They remain quiet, waiting for him to continue.

“The way the girl was found,” he says, lowering his voice as to not disturb the other patrons. “People are saying it was the same as when the Baubas stalked the streets back in the day.”

Miriam pushes her glass away, fixing Antony with a questioning look. There’s a moment of hesitation as she debates whether or not to push the discussion further. “This has happened before?”

“Wait a minute,” Zeller interrupts, putting up a hand to stop anyone from saying anything more. “First of all, how are you even sure that what you know about the crime scene is true and not some sensationalist exaggeration?”

“Sensationalist exaggeration is sort of redundant,” Price quips.

“A young woman, bled out, displayed as one would a work of art.” Antony straightens up, drumming his palms against the chair to a beat that only exists in his head. “The locals called him the Baubas because they refused to believe a human could be so evil.”

“It could be the work of a copycat,” Beverly says.

Will is only scarcely paying attention, focusing instead on the myriad of new images behind his eyes.

“Oh, it’d have to be. The Baubas was apprehended and executed several decades ago. Rather brutally, in my opinion.”

Will finally looks up at this, commiting Antony’s words to memory. “What was his name?”

“Don’t know. No one knows, really. It was all kept under wraps in hopes of not disrupting the peaceful clouds overhead. When the town relies so heavily on tourism, the news of a murderer doesn’t do them any favors.”

That doesn’t mean the name won’t appear on record, but Will has the nagging feeling it won’t. Otherwise the authorities would have likely brought it up while on the scene.

“There _is_ talk that he might have been the son of a count,” Antony continues. “Family might have bought the secrecy. Whatever was left of the line was driven out for the exception of the count’s wife.”

“What happened to her?” Beverly asks, throwing a glance at the table around her.

“Yet another mystery. Some say she died of natural causes, others say she hasn’t died at all, but she’d have to be well past a century old by now if she’s still alive. I’d like to know her secret.”

“Sounds like a load of hooey,” Price says, but he’s leaning over the table, attention rapt.

The smile Antony gives him is a knowing one. He knows he’s attractive, and he’s doing his best to charm the people who will allow to be charmed. “I’m just forwarding an old story. Might be of use, might not. Just curious is all. Curiosity killed the cat.”

“And satisfaction brought it back,” Will says before he can stop himself, regretting it immediately. 

Antony hones in on him again, and the slant of his mouth is nothing but riddled with intention. “Indeed it did.”

Beverly catches the expression and grins, goes to kick Will under the table but hits Price instead, nearly making him spill his drink. Zeller gives him a confused look, Miriam rolls her eyes, and Will really wants to head out despite not being wasted enough to go back.

Antony takes his leave shortly after, when his boss begins making rounds and grumbles at him in Lithuanian. He excuses himself, wishing them all a goodnight and a warm invitation to come again.

“I think we should call Jack,” Zeller is quick to say once he’s out of earshot. “Might be a dead end, might be a lead. What if there’s some connection between the rifle lady and the royal family?”

“It’s never that easy.” Will downs what’s left in his glass and doesn’t refill. “Just folklore and whimsey to keep us coming back and filling their pockets with cash.”

“But she might know something about this. It’s worth looking into.”

“You’re right,” Will says around a dry smile. “Who knows? She might be hiding her great aunt in a vault somewhere in the castle, along with the talking furniture.”

Miriam, Beverly, and Price bite back a laugh at the offended look Zeller gives him.

“Knock back two drinks and suddenly you’re the funniest man in the Bureau.”

Will rubs the bridge of his nose, ushering Zeller out of the booth so that he can slip out. He’s ready to call it a night and by the looks of it, all but Zeller are too. “We’ll tell Jack when he gets back,” he relents, recognizing a losing battle when faced with one.

Without any current leads, they’ll grasp at whatever stick is pointed their way. Even if said stick is thickly coated in pixie dust and the stench of small town drunks. Legends usually have real beginnings, but Will knows bullshit when he sees it.

Finally released, Will pins a bill under his empty glass and isn’t at all surprised when Beverly follows suit.

They head out into the night together, leaving the other three to their own devices.

He can hear Antony’s laughter ring out from somewhere behind him, but he doesn’t turn to look. This sort of thing is best cut short before an idea even begins to take form. Will won’t be here for long, and it’s best to keep things professional.

***

He and Beverly don’t make it back to the hotel. Not yet.

“Nice to see you officially back on the saddle,” she says while driving up to the castle gates, which are roughly seven feet high, with an assortment of wicked looking spikes on top.

“You know me. Can’t resist a good murder mystery.”

“I’m drowning in the sarcasm. I thought you said there was no mystery about it.”

Will leans over the dashboard to look out the windshield. The castle isn’t visible, hiding behind a thick wall of trees and its mountain fortress. The moon is big enough to illuminate the open grounds, but as a consequence it makes certain patches infinitely darker. There are gaps in the nearby treeline that open up like gaping maws, ready to swallow and keep.

“Will?”

“The bartender got me thinking.”

“Cute, right?” Will gives her a look that says he’s ready to call it quits and head back if she doesn’t cut the crap. “If the keeper doesn’t know anything about the murder, she might know something about the family?”

“She never said she didn’t know anything about the murder.”

“Which makes her twice as suspicious,” Beverly says with a nod. “But you’re certain she didn’t have an active hand in it?”

“Not physically.” Will opens the car door and shivers when the cold air bites into his neck. He turns up the collar of his coat and searches for his phone. Most of their equipment is in Jack’s rental with the intention of preventing them from doing exactly this. “What?” he asks when Beverly keeps eyeing him from the driver’s door.

“Why couldn’t this wait until morning? You know, when Jack knows and we have official permission to be here. An hour ago you were desperate to get back to your room.”

Stalling, Will unlocks his phone and searches for the flashlight app. He doesn’t know where the sudden urgency has come from, only that it’s there. “She might run.”

The light inside the car spills over Beverly’s face, and the twist of her mouth tells Will that she doesn’t believe him for a second.

Holding hope that the authorities forgot to lock the gates, Will rattles them to no avail. The chains are wrapped tightly around the weathered iron, allowing no give for him to at least open it enough to slip between them. “Do you have your lock picking kit on you?”

“Negative. My shit’s back at the hotel.” She finally closes the car door, but not before turning on the headlights. “No one’s gonna see us this far off from the main road.”

Uneasy at being so exposed, Will uses the light to his advantage. Pocketing his phone he pries for any possible openings onto the grounds. He pokes and pushes at the flimsier bars near the stone pillars to the left while Beverly does the same on the right. Nothing gives and of course nothing can ever be made easy.

He lingers for a moment on the twin plaques installed on the gates, the paint over old stone faded with age. Will can barely make out what he assumes is a family seal. From a frond of leaves slithers out a coiled snake, its open mouth and exposed fangs resting underneath the word _Lecter_ , which is bracketed by antlers.

“We’re going to have to climb over,” he says.

“Good thing I wore my flats.”

To Beverly’s verbal dismay, she cuts off the lights before breaking in.

The grounds look bigger under the moonlight, and feel even bigger still as they cut through the main pathway. Darkness prevents them from seeing too far ahead so they stay close to each other, taking step after slow step over dry leaves and feeble branches that crunch and snap underneath their shoes.

The forest stands to their right, alive with nocturnal sounds. Will doesn’t remark on Beverly’s insistence on staying to his left as if using him as a shield. She faces the overgrown gardens that, in his opinion, are far more accessible for anyone to hide in than a forest.

“The middle of buttfuck nowhere in Europe, nighttime, a castle, and a forest. I swear to fuck if Dracula comes at us, I’m throwing you in front of me and running back to the car.”

“You won’t make it over the gate,” Will says in all seriousness. Regardless of the jab, he reaches for the gun he doesn’t have holstered to his hip. He remembers unclipping it and placing it in one of his dresser’s drawers before heading out to the pub.

“Aren’t you a breath of fresh air! I still think we should wait until morning.”

“We’re already here.”

“More like, we’re still alive and we should take advantage of that luck.”

“You work for the BAU. You’ve been in scarier situations.”

“Dammit, Will. I’m Beverly Katz, not John Watson. I’m a scientist. I work in a lab, romancing dead bodies. I don’t go out looking to become one. That’s _your_ department.”

Fear makes her chattier than usual. “No, my department is thinking about killing people. The only thing you should be scared of here is me.” And fear gives him a bad sense of humor.

She snorts, punching his shoulder. “I’d kick your sorry ass before you can even get your hands on me, punk.”

The banter works on easing her nerves, keeping her quiet as they scour the area closest to the front gates for any telling signs of life. Will considers taking out his phone again but doesn’t, his eyes having already adjusted to the darkness. He does burrow deeper into his coat, the breeze around him growing colder and colder as the seconds tick by.

Isolation weighs heavy on his shoulders, darkening the corners of his vision that not even the moon can penetrate. Similar to loneliness, but not as crippling, Will can feel the hint of melancholia coiling up his legs like frigid snakes. As unsettling as it is, there’s a need buried deep within it. A need to stay and walk, to keep on digging deeper and deeper until he’s found graves with bones that still cling to the last bits of their flesh.

The air he sucks in freezes his lungs, trickling ice into his stomach. Like a blanket of static wrapping around him, he wants to both rip it off and stay perfectly still. A contradictory image slowly crawls behind his eyes and if only he could see what it is, but it isn’t enough. There isn’t any evidence for him to look at, no smell for him to take in.

The only thing Will has is the sensation of the forest coming closer while the rolling lands spread farther, as if hands have taken hold of either end of the property and are stretching it out in opposite directions.

“There are tombstones on the other side of the garden,” Beverly says, unceremoniously ripping Will away from the ocean he had sunk under. “It’s kind of obvious, but it’s the perfect place to hide a body. It’d be a bitch to get permission to exhume them and run some tests.”

“There isn’t going to be anything there.” Will had already walked the area this morning. “The soil hasn’t been touched in years.”

“But if what Antony said was true…” She lets the sentence trail off, prompting Will to pick it up.

He shakes his head. “I wouldn’t bury a pig in my family’s graveyard. It’s offensive.”

“Not unless you consider your family to be pigs too.”

Will thinks about it, but discards the thought. “If Marissa’s exposition is anything at all like the Baubas’ M.O., our killer’s a narcissist. Royalty is in his blood, and to kill this close to home? He thinks he’s smart, and he _is_ smart, smart enough to not bury whatever is left of his victims somewhere so accessible. _If_ he buried them, which I doubt he did. The forest would be better.”

He sucks in a breath, running a hand over his face. The leather of his gloves is so cold it burns.

“Are you talking about the Baubas, or our recent killer?”

An uncomfortable certainty settles in his thoughts, one that makes little to no sense. “I think they’re one and the same.”

Beverly lurks closer, eyebrows tight in thought. “So I was right when I mentioned a copycat.”

Will wants to say no, but it’s illogical. Even for him. “He’d have to be intimately acquainted with the family history. If he didn’t know the Baubas personally, then he must have known someone who knew him well.”

“So the family’s the key. Which means we have to find the keeper.”

Will angles his head to the side, listening to the sudden quiet Beverly’s apparently failed to notice. The insects have ceased their humming, and the breeze’s whistle through the trees has gone silent. The sense of isolation grows more intense, but Will is familiar with this kind of vacuum.

“I think she found us,” he says.

True enough, the absence of sound is broken by the snap of a branch while neither of them are moving. The misstep is a deliberate one, Will reckons. Hunters never alert prey of their presence unless they want to. He should know.

The third presence is confirmed when Beverly slowly lifts her arms, her eyes somewhere over Will’s shoulder. He goes to turn, but something hard presses against the middle of his back.

“You shouldn’t be here,” says a heavily accented voice. The atmosphere around them comes alive again, letting Will breathe with ease. “You are trespassing.”

“We just wanted to ask you some questions,” Beverly says. Will doesn’t see her move, but she must have because the rifle switches from his back to her chest.

“You have already asked them.”

“Questions that deserve answers, but you didn’t exactly give us any,” Will says, slowly lifting his own arms before turning to face the huntress. “We figured you’d be more inclined to offer them in an unofficial capacity.”

The rifle’s butt is to her shoulders, aiming point blank. Her skin is almost translucent in the moonlight, and she’s dressed exactly as she was this morning. “What makes you so sure I will be of help now?”

“I’m not,” he says, trying to convey a shrug with minimal movement, “but you could at least give us your name. Doesn’t have to be your real one.” Will tries the familiar approach, putting those psychology courses taken in college to use. _Breach the isolation she must have evolved to thrive in and trigger the natural response to socialize._

The woman smiles then, small and knowing. She paints the image of unbreakable china, lovely and practical. Her shards could cut skin. She won’t hesitate pulling the trigger if she must. “I am Chiyoh.”

Will nods his gratitude. “Will Graham. This is my partner, Beverly Katz.”

“We don’t mean you any harm,” Beverly says. “We’re not here to arrest you. Just rumors we wanted to follow up on.”

“People will often tell stories when they do not understand. Not all of these stories are true.”

“The word on the gate.” Will says before Beverly can reply. “That’s the family name?”

Chiyoh’s stare is unrelenting, sharper than her aim. Her only answer is a single nod, and Will decides on how to proceed.

“You’ve been here a very long time. Guarding the grounds.” It’s one of the few facts that now ring true. “Did your mother marry into the family?”

“That is not my name.”

“To inspire this kind of loyalty, at least one of them must have been important to you.” Will looks off in the direction of the mountains, and he can just make out the turrets among the treetops. Something slips into place then, a thought he’s surprised no one has brought up. “May we see the castle?”

The rifle goes higher and he can hear Beverly suck in a breath behind him.

The threat is an empty one, however. Had she any intention of shooting them, she needn’t have gotten so close.

Moonlight disappears into her eyes, reflecting back in the form of tiny pinpricks. Her aggression is a front for her protectiveness, and she knows she’s given that away the moment Will tips his head in understanding.

Something else catches his attention and were the situation any different he would have written it off as exhaustion. He sees a hint of light out of the corner of his eye, but a change of angle shows nothing there. Perfectly normal, if Chiyoh hadn’t moved to place herself between him and wherever the flash came from.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she reiterates, easing down the rifle and resting it against her shoulder. Neither Will nor Beverly lower their arms. “If you wish to search the castle, you may come back with a warrant during the day. I will not stop you.”

“If there’s anything else you’d like to share, now’s the time to do so to prevent our prying further into your personal affairs,” Beverly adds, but she’s already turning towards the front gates.

Chiyoh casts a look behind her, towards the garden that leads into the graveyard. “I have nothing more to share.” The _willingly_ goes unsaid, but Will hears it nonetheless.

He and Beverly make a hasty retreat, neither looking back at the woman who cradles her gun like it’s her most precious belonging.

Beverly remains silent as they climb over the gate, no doubt running their encounter through her own fountains of knowledge. She will have her own profile long before Will has made his, and she’ll make adjustments once he’s ready to give up what he has.

Strangely enough, she doesn’t bring up the light that should have been in her immediate line of sight. He writes if off as her not having seen it, but he knows it was there. Trust in his own senses may be short, but he knows an instinctual reaction when he sees one, and Chiyoh reacted.

Before getting in the Rover, Will casts one more look at the nightscape.

He can’t see very far, but Chiyoh’s lone figure walking back towards the greenhouse breaks the light and casts a shadow along the dark ground. Maybe it is his exhaustion or just the general feeling of unreality the night has brought, but he can almost see her reaching out her hand and touching the air beside her. Almost as if she were patting the head of a small child.


	2. Waking Song

“Victim is a Caucasian female, age twenty two. Cause of death is, actually, drowning. Her lungs, uh, filled up with blood before she was completely exsanguinated. Discoloration of the skin and later onset of rigor mortis places the time of death somewhere around dawn last Monday. You can say the cold has worked in her favor,” says Price, deciphering the what’s-what their unofficial translator scribbled on Marissa Schurr’s tag.

The morgue at Europol’s designated hospital is a long shot in comparison to Quantico’s, but it serves its purpose. Modern but scarcely staffed, it is the enclosed space that makes Will fidget around the examination table.

Miriam pulls the sheet back over the body’s head.

“You’re telling me this body’s been out in the open for four days?” Jack hovers over the table, as if doing so will guarantee him the answer he wants. An easy one. “It’s nowhere near cold enough to preserve her this way.”

“Low humidity could have helped.”

“And the animals?” Beverly says. She enters the room with Zeller in tow, both of them carrying enough coffee to go around. “Not enough hunters to keep those away. If not a decomposing body, we should have little more than some meat on bones.”

They all gravitate towards the tiny table by the door, taking their foam cups and sucking up their heat. It’s cold enough to require wearing a jacket indoors.

Will takes his coffee and passes on the sugar, moving away from the group to look down at the covered corpse. 

A preliminary search brought up a whole lot of nothing in relation to how she had gotten to Lithuania. Security cameras on train stations, airports, and nearby hotels drew up blanks. There is no trace that registers her ever leaving the United States. No passports have been found, and neither have any of her belongings. 

Seen by no one and without a trail left in her wake, Marissa might as well be a ghost.

“Who called it in?” Will asks, only mildly put off by the fact that the question has gone this long without asking.

“An anonymous tip. The police traced the call to a phone booth a few miles south of the estate. Man or woman, operator couldn’t tell.” Price sips at his coffee and scrunches his face in distaste. “Just like Auntie used to make it. Hot water with a dash of dirt.”

She couldn’t have been moved. The area around the puncture wounds shows she had been mounted long before the blood drained out of her. There was enough forensic evidence in the surrounding area to dismiss the murder being committed elsewhere.

“It’s a fairy tale,” Will finds himself saying before he’s even formulated a full thought.

“A fairy tale.” Now it’s him Jack decides to loom over, but Will doesn’t shy away.

“A fair maiden with no point of origin finds herself chasing little woodland creatures onto castle grounds.” He shrugs, because it’s as absurd as it is obvious.

“That’s a very Western way to look at it,” Miriam adds.

“She had a point of origin.” Jack pushes for him to continue, ready to point out the weaker points of Will’s reconstruction. But joke’s on him because Will isn’t going to reconstruct a damn thing. Not this time. “Duluth, Minnesota.” 

Zeller lifts a hand before stepping in, putting down his cup. “A lot of stories talked about princesses being abducted, or sold, or chased away from their homeland. Usually it ended bloody for them. This is practically textbook.”

Too simple. “The castle is the point of origin,” Will says, leaning back against an empty examination table and looking down at his shoes. There’s still mud on them from last night. “We need a name for whoever committed the last murders, Jack.”

“I thought we already established the Baubas was an urban legend,” Price says.

“It’ll make me _feel better_ if I have a name,” Will snaps. Even if his head is down, he can sense everyone’s eyes on him. “Run a check and maybe we’ll find a connection between the Lecter family and Chiyoh. No stone unturned and all that.”

Miriam steps forward but then thinks better of it, briefly turning to Jack before gesturing to Price and Zeller to follow her out. “We’ll take it up with the coroner. I’m sure wanting us Americans out of their hair takes priority over keeping a dead serial killer’s identity a secret.”

Will doesn’t watch them go and he doesn’t expect the rebuke that doesn’t come. They’ve all worked with him long enough to know he isn’t the easiest person to work with.

Jack paces, although he wouldn’t call what he’s doing pacing, exactly. He stalks back and forth, fists clenching and unclenching by his side, ready to physically lash out when Will has only done so verbally. “Interpol won’t ship her out until we’ve cleared it.”

Both Will and Beverly look up at the same time, but the latter complains first. “They can’t do that.”

“I got the call this morning, and clearly they can.”

“This goes against FBI procedures. Who knows how long it’ll take until we’ve put two and two together.”

“We’re outside FBI jurisdiction,” Jack says, looking hard at Will as if he’s the one at fault for a missing person’s case turning into a crime scene. “Here the law states that we can’t transfer a body out of local custody until the case is airtight and it won’t come back to bite them on the ass.”

“This could take weeks.” Will can feel his mood darkening all the more, the itch under his skin whispering at him to run. “My dogs.”

“Don’t worry about the dogs, Will.”

“I don’t think Alana Bloom is going to be very happy at the idea of having to drive up to Wolf Trap every day for a couple of weeks.”

“You knew this could get messy and you signed on. Nobody forced you. You could have made a better arrangement for them.”

Will bursts out a laugh that makes Beverly flinch beside him. “No, just dangle the lure and I’ll swim right the fuck up to your bait. No coercion there.”

“I am going to pretend you didn’t just say that, Graham,” Jack all but booms, turning on him like a bull. “You want out, there’s the door. If you want us to wrap this up as soon as possible, get your head in the game.”

“My head’s never not in the game, _Jack_.” Will pushes off the table, crossing the room and dumping the half-empty cup in the bin. “Isn’t that the reason why I’m not official FBI? Do we even have to go through this again?”

Jack stands in the middle of the room like a pillar, sucking in the air around him and forcing it to bend before him. Unshakeable and good at his job, he reigns in his agitated breathing. Will braces himself for what comes next, because it’s a dance they’ve been engaging in for the past two years.

“If the job is too much for you, you can go. You know this.”

“But you’ll appreciate my insight if I decide to stay.”

“I will _greatly_ appreciate your insight if you stay,” he says, driving the point home with a tone that’s a hint below simmering. Placating, almost, if Jack would ever stoop to that point.

And Will knows he will stay. He always does, because he’s unable to walk away and shut the door at his back. The grizzly and the nightmarish call out to him like a placid song in the middle of a hectic day. Striving for an answer quietens the constant torment that shreds away at his skin. It’s always the same unbreakable cycle.

“We need a search warrant,” Will says, refusing to call his sigh a defeated one. “A name and warrant. For the castle.”

Beverly considers him from across the room, the carefully professional gaze betraying none of the trepidation she most likely feels. For all her forward openness, she has never failed in keeping Will in-check or giving him space whenever he truly needs it. They’ve discussed how the job is no good for Will before, over drinks in a bar much more crowded than the one they had visited last night.

“Alright,” Jack says. He knocks a fist against the wall, fighting down the last of his coiled frustration. Sometimes Will wishes it was as easy for him to release energy by striking something. “I’ll get us that warrant.”

***

Castle Lecter rises up through the trees like a beast stirring from sleep.

Mid autumn sheds away leaves, and branches sway like claws seeking purchase against the weathered brickwork. The forest surrounds it in the shape of a makeshift moat, and it is unclear whether it is meant to keep people out or something else in.

It’s early afternoon and the place looks as imposing as it did last night.

“Good news is the Ministry doesn’t have anything on file in regards to the estate,” Price announces once he joins them in the courtyard. He nudges a wayward brick from the fountain to the side. “Technically, it doesn’t exist, so no warrant is required. However, the neighboring forest is a natural reserve that allows lawful hunting.”

“And the grounds are part of the forest,” Beverly interjects.

“We can stay, but the Bureau cleans its hands if either of us gets shot by hunters. Accidental or not.” He flings a scarf to hang around his neck. “Anybody else thinks this is shady as hell?”

Miriam agrees. “From making the investigation difficult to allowing us full access to a place that officially doesn’t exist. I’m surprised the Lecters didn’t bite it due to tax evasion. Then again, everything’s so loose here, I can see how they’d be able to get away with it.”

Legal issues aside, Will has an extensive list of reasons why this all seems warped and more difficult than it should be, from the forest that _looks_ different, as if the trees have somehow changed color or moved a quarter inch to the left, to a castle that doesn’t look to have been looted at any point in time since its abandonment. One person isn’t enough to keep the entire estate secure.

On a more abstract note, Will can sense someone looking at him. It differs from the sensation of a person staring, feeling more like being stalked by a wolf in the tundra - nowhere to hide and with no chance of outrunning it.

“Let me get this straight.” Zeller passes by Will to better face off with Price. His hands do most of the talking for him. “The plan involves us staying here, in the middle of nowhere, in Cinderella’s Castle of Horrors that probably has no electricity, with a potential serial killer on the loose? A serial killer who’s dumped a body, say, one hundred feet from here?”

“Who better than us?” Will’s sarcasm doesn’t go unnoticed, but Zeller still manages to look bewildered. “It’s in the job description.”

“My job description is to poke at dead bodies and makes sure they don’t wheeze back to life while putting a bonesaw to their ribs. Nothing on there about haunted castles.”

“Something else to add to your resume,” Will says.

“Do we have a problem, Zee?” Jack finally joins them, looking around the troupe before casting a sharp look to the courtyard and the treeline beyond it. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of ghost stories.”

“No, I just don’t want to become part of a ghost story. Or a ghost in general.”

“Listen up,” Jack interrupts, but Zeller doesn’t bristle. They all give him their attention. “Forty eight hours is all I’m willing to tolerate with this place.”

“We can’t stay more than one night,” Will is quick to add, closing some of the space between him and Jack. “That would require us to sleep here.”

“Take turns keeping watch.” His tone leaves no room for argument. “Everyone stays indoors after nightfall, but I want those windows hawked at all times. You see a rabbit in the garden, you call me. Every move, every breath, every damn shift in shadows, I want to know about it.”

“What about the Ministry?” Miriam asks. She keeps looking behind her, Will realizes, although there’s nothing there but open space. “To think they’d want to keep an eye on us.”

“The Commissar doesn’t want any of her men put in unnecessary danger. They’ll continue their investigation through traditional means.”

“Like we do.”

“An unorthodox crime requires unorthodox methods.”

Will lifts his head at this. If the case is already getting to Jack to the point that he’s turned towards fringe methods of investigation, then it’s going to be a very difficult couple of days. He wonders if this is the case that finally breaks the Guru.

“Is anybody worried that the head honcho considers the job too dangerous for people who were, you know, trained for this kind of scenario?” Zeller says to no one in particular, walking off in the direction of the front doors. He only stops to tap a nail against the brass knocker. “How more stereotypical can this place get? All we’re missing is the fog.”

Beverly casts Will a knowing look and smiles crookedly. “Just give it a few hours. It’ll come around.”

***

When the fog does come around, it’s as thick and menacing as it had been the previous night.

Will leans against the frame of an open window located on the castle’s third floor, the air cold enough to merit the use of a coat. There’s no central heating and what little electricity there is only works in certain sections. His vantage point isn’t one of them. 

The rest of the group with the exception of Miriam, his partner for the first watch, is huddled and sleeping before the only functioning fireplace in a parlor on the ground level. He’s still unsure whether he prefers this or the seedy motel.

In his mind’s eye he replays their grand entrance into the castle over and over again, and while the image is fresh, he’s unable to recreate the distinct feeling of foreboding that had come over him the moment the worn soles of his shoes touched the marble floors.

The eclectic decor, a mixture of Northeast Asia with a flair of Baroque, contrasted the play of monotone colors Chiyoh had worn for their arrival. Will had only spared her a passing thought when he noted her absence during the initial sweep of the grounds, and was startled into silence at finding her standing in the main entryway, dressed far more elegantly than called for.

Aside from the polite greetings, she had remained quiet as she showed them how to get around without getting lost in the seemingly endless turns and hallways of the fortress.

By all means it looked normal, but something about the gesture sat wrong in his gut.

The same way that the dark around him now feels wrong.

Clouds cover the moon, and the only source of light he has is the one that comes out of a window two floors below. His eyes have adjusted enough to allow a sheen of blue to overlay the otherwise black corridor he stands in, worsening the shadows that dart and hide behind suits of armor and antique vases.

Will pulls the flashlight from his pocket and clicks it on, giving the corridor a sweep and finding nothing out of the ordinary. Not that he was expecting otherwise.

He’s tired, but, watch or not, he knows he won’t get much sleep while on the grounds.

He wishes Miriam would hurry up with those gas lamps.

Ignoring the dark at his back, Will leans out the window and keeps his eyes along the treeline, weight on his hands as he tips as far as he can go without falling over. He spots nothing but a quiet forest, not a rustle of leaves or the cry of an animal. No murderers or pagans dance out in the night beckoning him to join them.

The wooden ledge is dusty as opposed to the rest of what he’d been shown, the place swept and polished as if ready to greet royalty rather than overworked, glorified cops.

Another sweep of the grounds, this one in search of Chiyoh, but the woman might as well be smoke. She blends into her surroundings like any hunter worth their salt, seen only when she wants to or needs to be seen. He figures that’s why he keeps feeling like he’s being watched. Maybe she’s hiding behind a pillar, making certain he doesn’t break anything valuable, or maybe it’s the suggestion that she might be that fuels the sensation.

Either way, Will shines his flashlight up and down the corridor again.

A ruckus catches his attention from below, the rowdiness of voices and laughter carried in the breeze. He looks down to the slanted square of light on the grass and sees the shadows of those inside still moving about. At least he won’t be the only one losing sleep.

Movement out of the corner of his eye rips him away from the sight, forcing him a step back only to find Miriam standing there with two lit candles mounted on old candle holders, rather than the gas lamps she had set out to get. Her smile is creepy with how the dancing flames make it flash orange and gray at odd angles.

“Brought up some coffee for those nerves,” she says, turning sideways to offer him the thermos she has pinched under her arm. “And also to keep us awake for the next four hours.”

“That’s a lot of faith you’re putting on there.”

“Faith’s all we got, Graham.”

He pours them both a cup and offers her the bigger one. 

The din below grows louder.

“I figured they’d make better use of their four hours of sleep,” he says, adjusting one of the candles Miriam put down on the floor. He nudges it further down the hall with the tip of his shoe, wishing he had the means to light the entire area.

“Zee and Price are already out for the night. Beverly’s the only one chugging down coffee and claiming that she’ll power through until her shift.”

Will gives her words some thought and pauses with the cup halfway to his mouth. “She’s the only one awake?”

“Yeah. Although, I wouldn’t ask her to hold any eggs.”

Putting the cup down, Will leans out again, this time to be met with an eerie darkness that huffs on him, like hovering over an open mouth. He pulls back before its jaw can snap shut.

“What is it?”

He holds his breath long enough to ease the mismatched thudding of his heart. There had been the sound of voices and laughter just thirty seconds before Miriam arrived and so he stills, straining his hearing in hopes that the noises had actually drifted up from elsewhere.

He can hear it in the distance if only for a short moment before it’s gone. The light stroke of piano keys, a soft song he can’t make out the tune of. It stops when he catches it, as if flipping a switch, and Will is left reaching out for something that might not have been there at all.

All in the imagination.

“Maybe I should switch you out with Katz. Give you a break until you’re up and running at full capacity.”

“Where’s Jack?” he asks, only then realizing that she hadn’t mentioned him.

“Headed to Vilnius for a meeting with the Ministry. Bit of a drive so he decided to get a headstart.”

Will nods his head, understanding. And feeling a little cheated. Trust Jack to dump them here with the utmost confidence that they’ll be able to solve the case without him.

“I would have gone with him if he’d asked,” she says, refilling her cup. “This place gives me the creeps.”

He couldn’t agree more.

Time passes without another word spared, Miriam understanding that small-talk isn’t Will’s preferred method of entertainment. 

She paces the corridor, the sway of her candle as she moves to and fro gracing the winding paths with the smallest hint of light. It pushes away the shadows, only to bring them right back to the edge of his feet. A game of chicken with Will as the unwilling participant. Any moment now, he fears, something will appear standing where there should be nothing but emptiness.

Hours crawl and Will is exhausted. But even then, when it’s their time to curl up before the fireplace for the night, he knows for a fact that sleep will remain as elusive as their killer. The castle and its tenants will make certain of it.


	3. Arrival of the Bird

No stranger to streaks of bad luck, Will is good at ignoring the illogical and improbable patterns of events that lead up to unpleasant conclusions. His job is to make sense of tiny and easily missed discrepancies in murder cases that may lead to potential breakthroughs, not to piece together the reason why life enjoys kicking his ass time and time again. Some people hit the Powerball twice in their lifetimes, Will Graham just gets hit by fastballs once or twice a week.

His phone’s gone missing. At first he assumed it had been picked from his pocket, but he doesn’t recall ever using it after being held at gunpoint on the castle grounds. The others had tried calling it, but he’s been in the habit of setting it to vibrate ever since he discovered the setting years ago.

To his annoyance, the town is so far out of the way that there are no public payphones other than the one near the Lecter estate. That one has been disconnected, according to the police, for the past five years. That bit of knowledge had been enough to raise up their hackles, but as it is, cell service is down and informing Jack of the apparent misinformation in the initial report will have to wait until he rejoins them.

A quick glance Will had made several nights ago leads him back to the pub.

The place is mostly empty at the early hour, only a handful of patrons scattered about with their faces behind the paper. No one pays him any attention as he crosses the freshly mopped floor and makes for the counter.

He asks if he can use the phone, conveying the question mostly through hand gestures and slow English, and the old woman gives him permission with an amused look and a mild wave.

It takes Will two tries to get the number right, and it’s when he hears Alana’s voice on the other end of the line that he remembers being in a different time zone. “Shit.”

_“Will?”_

“I forgot I’m a couple of hours ahead of you.”

_“You caught me between lectures. Consider yourself lucky.”_

Will glances at the clock above the bar and makes a brief calculation. He thinks there might be a seven hour difference, but he hadn’t bothered to verify that. His watch and phone had automatically switched once the plane landed. “Dinner break?”

_“More like a yogurt and granola bar break. Had some unpleasant company drop by the campus. Cut my hour shorter than I would have liked.”_ Will stays quiet, both at a loss of what to say and wondering who the company was. _“How are things?”_

“Fine. Stranger than we thought it’d be, but that’s not surprising.”

_“Weirder than having you guys fly out to the middle of nowhere to solve a case?”_

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Will sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “We’ve just scratched the surface, and I have a feeling it’s a long way down until we start getting answers.”

There’s a rustling of papers on the other end, the click of computer keys and Will can see Alana sitting behind her desk in a lecture hall. Unassuming dress, hair tied back with a pin, blood red lipstick bringing out the pale color of her eyes. Beautiful, as she’s always been. Untouchable, as she always will be.

_“In that case, I feel like I should give you a heads up,”_ she says, followed by the creaking of a chair. _“Lounds got a whiff and she’s giving chase.”_

Will twists his nose in distaste when he’s able to put a face to the unpleasant company she meant. “She has no idea where we are.”

_“When has that ever stopped her before? She posted a great deal on her blog last night.”_

“Why come to you? You don’t consult for us.”

Alana is quiet for a short moment. _“She wasn’t here about the case. Not entirely.”_

Blanks are immediately filled, leaving Will with a sick sense of embarrassment. “What did you tell her?”

_“Nothing.”_ She sounds affronted that Will would even think otherwise. _“I wouldn’t be a very good therapist if you couldn’t trust me.”_ Her words are soft, meant to assuage the bitterness she knows he’s harboring.

“I’m just unsure as to why you refuse to defend yourself.”

_“There’s nothing to defend.”_

“Your reputation.”

_“Nothing happened, Will,”_ she says, stern enough to border on a reprimand. _“There will always be rumors, and if I start entertaining every tabloid journalist in my life I’ll never step foot outside the courtroom.”_

“Patients withdrew, Alana. A lot of them. I was forced to get a referral.”

_“You chose to end our doctor-patient relationship.”_

“I was running out of ideas. Didn’t seem right to continue making appointments with the psychiatrist I allegedly slept with.”

_“Will–”_

“How are the dogs?” he interrupts, rudely, but the previous subject is one they’ve argued about countless times. What’s done is done and he sees no use in retelling events whenever someone pokes their nose into his business. “Hope they haven’t been much trouble.”

Alana doesn’t immediately answer, but he can hear the increasing chatter of students filling up the hall. _“Well behaved, as I expected them to be. They miss you.”_

Will nods although she can’t see him. “I might be longer than I thought I would be.”

_“Good. That just means I can keep them as my personal space heater for much longer.”_ She says so in good humor, trying to ease the tension, but the _good_ hits him the wrong way despite knowing it isn’t her intention.

“I owe you,” he says, gazing down at the worn wooden floor and wishing he hadn’t gotten out of bed this morning. Even if ‘bed’ consisted of a sleeping bag in front of a dusty fireplace in a very cold medieval castle.

_“You can grant me access to a lifetime supply of beer when you get back.”_

They exchange goodbyes and once Will turns to hang up the phone, he’s startled by the man leaning against the counter.

Antony’s only greeting is a smile. He pushes a glass towards Will and waves his hand in a flourish, as if he’s made the drink appear by magic. “You look like you need a drink or three.”

“It’s ten in the morning.”

“Alcohol at odd hours is the mark of true adulthood,” he says, straightening up from the bar and reaching for a rag beneath the countertop. “Plus, if you work nights and sleep off mornings, wouldn’t dusk be for breakfast and dawn for whatever's on tap? Let’s call it a late morning. On me.”

Will stares at the man, then down at the drink. He likes to think that he isn’t an alcoholic, that he’s done better at dealing with his crutch since the Hobbs incident. That doesn’t stop him from knocking it back in one go. “Do you have a computer at hand?”

“That depends on what you need it for,” Antony says, his back to Will as he polishes the glasses on the shelves. “Can’t just hand it over to a stranger.”

“We’ve met twice.”

“Still a stranger.”

“I’ve done more on a first meeting,” Will tries, and that definitely catches the man’s attention. It gives away enough for Will to decide which deck to play when dealing with him. “Lodgings are a deadzone and I forgot mine at the motel. I also lost my phone.” He taps the tip of a finger over the antique phone.

“You’re a lot more talkative than you were last time.”

“Second date.”

Antony grins at him, all straight teeth and English luster. “Where’s the rest of your lot?”

“Out and about.” Will pulls a stool over with his foot and sits down, leaning against the counter as he’s watched with thinly veiled interest. “Just me today.”

Flirtation is a tactic rarely used due to the potential danger it invites, but nothing points at Antony being a predator. He’s too mild mannered, too aloof to wield a knife for anything other than preparing an appetizer. Too proud to put anything in Will’s drink. His conquests are hard earned.

Will watches him head into the kitchen and then return five minutes later with a plate and mug in hand. He slides it over to him, leaves again, and returns with a small jar and a butter knife.

Toast and coffee. “Is this on you, too?”

“No, that you can pay for,” he says. “That’s what you get for being such a terrible actor, Mr. Graham. Or did you think you were selling the whole ‘lonely detective looking for a handsome Englishman to offer comfort’ ruse?” There’s no real malice in the words, just a jest that calls him out.

Will shrugs, taking the toast without question. “I really came for the phone.”

“Never suggested otherwise.” Antony moves to take the order of an older gentleman, his Lithuanian jerky but understandable. Once the man takes a table, he turns his attention back to Will. “I’m curious how far you would have gone.”

“Not very,” Will guarantees him.

Antony doesn’t answer, standing on the other side of the counter and staring at Will for a solid three seconds before disappearing into the kitchen again.

It suddenly feels like Antony is a lot smarter than Will had given him credit for. He’s a people person, which automatically gives him a different sort of insight from the type Will usually reads. A poet and bartender, but he’s educated and knows how to pick his words. Knows when people are lying.

“Girlfriend!” Antony says loudly as he steps out to deliver a carafe to the gentleman from before. “She’s your girlfriend.”

Will snorts into his own coffee, infinitely better than the one Jack had gotten him yesterday. “No.”

“Didn’t get that far, then? Though you wanted to.”

“You sound sure.”

“I am.” Antony returns to polishing the glasses. “There’s a face for every person and every situation. You hid it well that first time, so, kudos. Today was a bit more obvious. Probably because you were talking to her.”

“That’s some fine detective work.”

“Think so? I’m just getting started, too,” he says with a laugh.

Will takes another bite out of his toast, picking up hints of honey and nuts in the butter. “I’m all ears.”

“Ran into deep trouble back home,” Antony says, keeping casual and barely sparing Will a glance. “So deep it’s desperately dark and your superiors figured you needed help to crawl out of it. They set you up with a lovely woman so she can listen to you talk about your demons, but you don’t talk much, because you’re stubborn and you think you might contaminate her with your thoughts. But you don’t miss an appointment. It’s rude to do so. Then, it’s not about not being rude, you’re there because you like her.” It’s his turn to shrug, putting down the current glass tumbler and flipping the rag to rest on his shoulder. “You told the wrong person how you felt and everything went to hell.”

Will isn’t impressed.

A basic grasping at straws, tied together with knowledge a quick Google search of his name would toss about. It does require a hint of finesse, which the man clearly has, but it’s nothing as sharp or refined as Will’s own uncanny ability to empathize and extrapolate.

“Close enough,” Will says, finishing up his brunch. He considers placing several orders to go for the others.

“Oh, come now. You aren’t going to correct me?”

“Correcting requires my telling you what actually happened. I don’t know you that well.”

Antony tips his head in acquiescence. “For the third date, then.”

Will nurses his coffee a while longer, watching Antony’s back as he cleans up. Curiosity prompts him to ask, “What you said about the Baubas the other night. Was any of it true?”

“Of course not,” Antony answers without looking at him. “Baubas is an urban legend meant to keep the kids in line and to lure in tourists with a knack for the spooky. Just an attraction.”

“That’s not what the Ministry says.”

“The unnamed killer was real enough, but he wasn’t some sort of otherworldly monster, just some bloke. Probably wasn’t even royalty.”

The edge of Will’s thumb caresses the porcelain mug. “How many deaths were attributed to him?”

“Not entirely sure.” Antony returns to Will, standing in front of him with a bored frown. “A handful of unsolved murders were pinned to the name Baubas, mostly because none of the victims had any sort of connection.”

“No traceable motive.”

Antony manages to convey a shrug without using his shoulders. A curious feat. “Haven’t the slightest, outside of what the locals gossip about. Whenever a body shows up without an explanation, the Baubas gets another notch on its belt.”

Reports on previous unrelated victims might yield some results, if what he says has any sort of base in reality. “Pretty grim to be used as a tourist attraction. Does it work?”

There’s a beat silence that forces Will to look up from his mug when Antony leans over the bartop, getting Will to look him in the eye rather than the rim of his glasses. The look on Antony’s face merits Will’s utmost attention. It isn’t playful, but it is two levels below serious. 

“Brought you back, didn’t it? Unless it was something else.” A smile then, slow and smooth. “Do you know what’s the best thing about small town attractions, Will? There’s no height limit for you to ride.”

Will blinks at the blunt come on, unsure of how he feels about it. “And here I thought it was the cheap fare.”

***

Driving up to the front of the castle, Will taps the horn but gets no response. He looks out through the windshield at the windows that face the foyer and parlor, but sees no one despite the two other cars parked off to the side.

On the passenger’s seat are takeout containers courtesy of Will’s good graces and Antony’s not quite failed attempts at guilt-tripping him. Of course, no one has the decency to pop out and ask if he needs any help. He has a half a mind to leave them there to go cold.

Stepping out of the car, he grabs the bags and heads inside.

Lecter Castle doesn’t lose its grandiose impact the more he sees it. Quite the opposite, the high arching halls shine brighter with each passing hour. Cobwebs seem to vanish, the white of its walls far too clean for a structure that’s been mostly abandoned for decades.

The group has taken to polishing up the windows near their base for a clearer vantage point. Sheets and covers are pulled down from the furniture and rolled up, stacked neatly on top of a table for when their stake out comes to its merry end.

After the initial uneventful night, Will is certain they’re only wasting their time. The odds that this killer would go by the same tableau again are minimal, much less if it means returning to an area undoubtedly being monitored.

Aside from old windows and even older walls creaking and settling, nothing stirs.

Will can’t say the same about the forest, its shadows telling him that there might be something in there still, something he might have missed. The presence of it instills a stagnant kind of fear where he doesn’t necessarily freeze, but wants to push against. 

He takes a left once he reaches the main staircase, subconsciously running the castle’s layout through his head.

Will entertains the thought of getting it over with. Grab a gun and a flashlight, break through the barrier of trees during daytime. They did so on the day they arrived, before Marissa’s body was dismounted from its perch on the tree. He’s unsure why he’s so hesitant to do it again.

In the same way he’s hesitant about taking a step further into the castle.

Three times. He’s been in and out of the main building three times, taking the same path without fail. Through the front door, down the wide corridor and a sharp left after the fourth archway right before the winding staircase. There should be a pair of open doors that lead to the parlor they’re squatting in.

A bare kitchen spreads out in front of him, stonework dusty and half collapsed. There’s broken glass over the center table.

Will backtracks into the corridor, the heavy bags beginning to feel heavy against sweaty fingers.

He tries again. The kitchen is still there.

Tired and moving deliberately, he thinks he might have confused right for left, so he takes a right on the third try. He’s met with an empty room.

For a panicked moment, he wonders if he’s walked into the wrong castle before dismissing the notion altogether. It’s almost as ridiculous as moving rooms.

Will stops to think, deciding that the place is just too big and most of the mapping had been done late in the evening. Stained glass windows cast projections and can easily confuse anyone, tricking senses in discreet ways.

He tries for the front door, but the corridor he stands in stretches out in both directions, even when one end still leads to the staircase. It may look familiar but it doesn’t really feel so, like a memory that doesn’t quite fit into a factual experience.

“Bev?” He sets the bags down when he’s about to take the hallway on the right, but something flickers in the corner of his eye.

Will turns on the spot and is met with a whole lot of nothing.

Mostly on instinct, he reaches for the gun tucked under his jacket.

He strains to hear for anything, laughter or voices, and picks up the faint thump of footsteps somewhere in the hall he’s standing in. “Hello?” The noise promptly fades.

Will starts walking, no use in standing still, gun held behind him in case anyone other than his team or Chiyoh has wandered inside.

There’s a discordant sensation that puts his hairs on end, one that is similar to the one he felt when he had nothing but a candle to illuminate the night. It had dwindled until it dissipated, but Miriam had been there too. Not that different from a child, Will wishes there was someone here to keep the shadows away.

But these aren’t shadows. This isn’t something that goes bump in the night. He’s faced very real monsters, most of them wielding knives and guns, but none have ever put him so on edge.

There’s no such thing as ghosts, and Will would laugh if he were someone else, but he isn’t. He’s Will Graham, and his history leaves a lot to be desired. 

Madness is intricately tied in with his empathy and nervous system. He’s the guy who is too mentally unstable to be official FBI. The same one who has lost time, who emptied a clip into a man with too much of an unsteady hand and still sees him over his shoulder. He’s the guy who couldn’t save a little girl, the likes of which still haunts his sleep.

Will is the guy who stops dead in his tracks because he can physically see a tiny person dart down into an adjoining corridor ten feet away from him, a flash of blonde hair and a hint of white clothes.

“Hey!” he shouts, heart jumping up to his throat when he chases after them. “Hey, you!” But there is no you, not a hint of a person or anything resembling one once he takes the corner.

It isn’t Abigail, he tells himself, of course it isn’t. Abigail is dead. She wasn’t even blonde.

It isn’t her, but he wants it to be, because the alternative is something he doesn’t have the energy to deal with. He can’t afford a relapse. He refuses to go back to being dependant on medication and weekly therapy sessions with a woman who looks at him with professional curiosity and carefully concealed pity.

He can’t do it. Not this time.

“There you are,” says a voice, startling him. “Are you okay?” Miriam is holding up her hands in a calming gesture, taking a step back and allowing him to find his bearings. “Will? Hey.”

“Yeah,” he stammers. Slumping, he is surprised by how heavy his arms are.

“What’s that?” Miriam reaches for his hands, but before he can say anything, he falls quiet when he watches her take the bags from him. “This smells amazing.”

Will continues to stare at her, at the offending bags, before bringing up a hand to pat at his jacket. No gun. Not even a holster. He hadn’t left armed this morning. “Yeah.”

Miriam turns her attention to him again, stepping close for a better inspection. Whatever she sees is cause for concern, prompting her to take the rest of the weight off his hands and gently nudging him forward without physically touching him. “What are you doing all the way down here, Will?”

“I got lost.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be a sailor? Figured your sense of direction would be better,” she says, trying to coax him away from the dangerous edge.

He offers her a smile that is humorless and ugly, his knees shaking and sweat cold at the base of his spine.

She leads him back towards the front of the castle, just a few twists and turns, nothing as complicated and confusing as the path he ran along. There, on the door to the left of the staircase, is the parlor.

“Will brought us food,” Miriam announces, depositing the bags on the table by the door, before she’s shushed by a red-faced Beverly. “Not again.”

Will steps deeper into the parlor and spots Price and Zeller sitting on a rug, a digital recorder in front of them. 

“That was Lass talking and Katz shushing her,” Price speaks into it, checking his watch. “At 1:15pm.”

The watch on Will’s wrist reads the same. He left the bar two hours ago, and it’s only a thirty minute drive to the castle grounds.

“If Jack catches you two playing with the equipment,” Miriam starts, but the threat falls on deaf ears.

“Relax, it’s just some harmless fun,” Beverly says, moving across the room to rummage through the takeout containers. “Have I ever told you you’re my favorite recluse?” she tells Will, casting him a blinding grin. “I smell hashbrowns.”

“What are you doing?” Will is finally able to ask once he gets his mouth to work again. His legs somehow manage to carry him as far as the couch before collapsing under him. 

“We’re communicating with the other side,” Zeller says, trying on a phony accent and wiggling his fingers for an air of mystery. “Jimmy was watching one of those paranormal shows the other night.”

“To think we’re scientists.” Beverly plops down beside Will, balancing her meal on a bent knee. “They’re attempting to catch an ‘EVP’.”

“That stands for electronic voice phenomenon.”

“We know what it stands for, Zee.”

“Any news from Jack?” Will says, writing off their antics. It isn’t the first time they’ve done something incredibly stupid for the sake of passing time.

Miriam answers when Beverly takes too long, muttering around a mouthful of food. “I drove up to the station this morning and it looks like we’re waiting on someone to show up.” She chooses to sit on the floor, eyeing Will to make sure he doesn’t keel over any time soon. “Apparently, some details of the case slipped through and caught the man’s attention.”

“Potential lead?”

“No idea, but at this point we need all the help we can get if we want to get back home soon.”

“Hey, uh, can you two keep it down?” Price points at the recorder on the floor. “You can take it outside, but we might be onto something here.”

“Ask the spirits if they have this week’s lottery numbers.”

“That’s not how it works, _Miriam._ ”

She and Price fall into an argument Will shuts out, drained of every ounce of energy in him. He would very much like to crawl up into a ball and sleep, and is vaguely tempted to crash at his motel room and let the others take up the stakeout tonight. He doubts he will be able to keep his eyes open.

Beverly notices. “You look like you’re about to pass out.”

“Could you describe what you’re feeling?” Price chirps up, lifting the recorder towards Will like a reporter. “Allegedly, spirits can drain the energy from objects around them in order to manifest.”

“Shut up, Price.”

“Is there anything you have to say, Will? Any questions?”

Will looks from Price to Beverly, then to Zeller and Miriam. He isn’t quick to react. In fact, he doesn’t react at all to the shadow he sees out of the corner of his eye, different from the little girl he had hallucinated a few minutes before. Darker.

Watching.

“Does anybody have aspirin?”


	4. Through the Third Eye

_Will hides under the bed._

_He keeps a hand clasped over his mouth to quieten his fast breathing, afraid that whatever is in his room might hear and find him. Dad isn’t home, and even if he did check under the bed for monsters, he didn’t think to do so with the closet._

_Will is unsure of what time it is but it’s still dark out, and Dad isn’t home. He can’t call for him, can’t scream or run out the room, down the narrow hallway into the living room where Dad sleeps on the pull-out couch whenever he isn’t working or hanging out with his buddies._

_He waits under the bed, terrified of the creaking springs of the mattress and the way the sheets move, no longer touching the warped floorboards. There’s something above him, sitting in the middle of his fortress and waiting. Silent and patient. Listening for the tiniest squeak Will should make._

_The soft orange glow of the lamp in the corner now becomes his enemy, tempting Will to look out from under the covers, to seek out the thing that lingers for him. He doesn’t want to look at it. He can’t do it. Seeing means he will want to reach out and touch it, and he can’t. He doesn’t know what will happen, but it can’t be anything good. No one shares rooms with monsters and survives unscathed._

_It isn’t long before the light turns cooler, the same as the breeze that rustles his curls and loose clothes. The smell of salt is strong on his nose, sharp against the scratches on his legs and his bleeding lip and broken brow. Cool enough to be considered cold for a summer night._

_“What are you doing out here, Billie?” Dad says. He’s working on a boat, water up to his knees, at night. “Shouldn’t you be studying?”_

_Will nods, but he won’t go back inside. There’s something in his bed still, something that won’t move and only watches. It watches him grow up and change through the years, goes with them wherever they go. Will never sleeps in his bedroom anymore._

_He picks up his science book and sits on the shoreline, facing the endless expanse of black that roars for him. The sea calls, promises a great many things, but not yet. Will still has an exam he needs to pass because he can’t work the boatyards for the rest of his life. He would if he could, but Dad says he can’t._

_“You’re different, Billie. These old geezers don’t understand that. You make your old man proud now.”_

_Will doubts he will ever be able to if he continues to be scared of monsters, but what else can he do? Without Dad there is no one to fight it off. They already sent Mom away. There’s only so much a man can do._

_And he is a man. A grown man who reads the stars for navigation and trips over rocks hidden in the sand. A man who looks past the sheets and into the warm penumbra of a room that never belonged to him._

_His name is Will Graham, and_ that _belongs to him._

***

Will opens his eyes to a dark room, the only bit of light that bleeds in through the tall windows casting the furniture in pale hues of blue. The bed underneath him is sprawling and warm against the coldness of the outside, trapping him in its comfort, and a safety that cannot be real.

The room is unfamiliar. It’s not the motel and neither is it the parlor, but the fear is caused by his lack of worry.

There’s a dormant fireplace across the foot of the bed, and Will can’t see much else but the stag head mounted high above, its antlers spread out like dry branches, tapping the ancient stonework of the castle walls. The slow crawl of clouds makes the moonlight flicker, causing illusions that chill his bones. The antlers dance, swaying side to side like the animal were still alive, trying to shake itself free from its wooden perch.

To Will’s horror it does come free, but what steps down from the fireplace isn’t a stag.

Neither man nor beast, the creature crawls down onto the floor with slow and deliberate movements. Unpredictable like a spider, it comes to a stop beside the foot of the bed and stands on its hind legs, giving it enough height to make its slender frame lanky. Arms abnormally long, its hands stretch out into claws, similar to bone, equal to the sharp antlers on its head.

Will can’t see much else in the dark that cloaks it, blacker than the rest of his vision and the room he’s in. It moves like a man though its knees seem perpetually bent, the rest of its posture stiff and imposing as it stalks closer to him, the light revealing more of the twisted thing.

He tries to get away. Sheets tangle around his legs the more he kicks at them, desperate to run and hide.

It stops moving then, standing there idly, head movement almost mechanical. Will realizes that it is assessing him, trying to make up its mind on what it wants to do.

There’s a pause as his breaths freeze his very lungs, and then Will goes for the gun he doesn’t have.

A hand smacks into his chest and jolts him awake.

Will sits upright, eyes blinking rapidly and flinching at the brightness that instantly assaults his sight. He’s scrambling back on instinct, thrashing in a clumsy attempt to get away, to flee as far as he possibly can.

He grows still the more aware he becomes, taking in his surroundings and understanding that he’s not in any danger. He’s in the parlor, the fireplace still crackling. Price and Zeller are curled up against each other on the other side of the rug, and the absence of Beverly and Miriam tells him they’ve taken up their shift.

The hand that hit him is only his own, and the events, no matter how vivid, were only a nightmare.

Sweat soaks his clothing and the sheets he’s laying on, a first in two years. The last time a similar sequence of events happened he had gotten checked in to a nice padded room and a snug jacket. Two things he can well do without for the rest of his life.

He reaches for his duffel bag once his limbs stabilize, searching for a dry change of clothes until he can get the ones on his back washed at the motel tomorrow. Will tries his damnedest not to think about the creature, but the terror he had felt lingers in the back of his mind. Instead, he focuses on another rare figure.

John Graham hasn’t graced Will’s conscious memory for years. He had forgotten how the man always smelled of sea salt and cheap booze; what his voice sounded like. A strong hand but a loving one, in his own way. Born and raised in traditional Southern values, he never did see eye to eye with Will’s personal choices on how to live life. There had never been a lack of mutual respect, however.

Peeling off his shirt, Will wonders what caused the memory of his old man to surface. He doesn’t feel sick nor unstable, regardless of this morning’s lapse. Will recalls the last time his brain decided that mutiny is a perfectly acceptable method of self-defense, and it had been nothing as coherent as this.

Changing into a relatively clean pair of jeans, Will stops when threading the button to listen. He frowns, uncertain if what he’s hearing is real or the leftover dredges of sleep causing auditory hallucinations. He once read that drinking excess amounts of caffeine can do that to a person.

The crackling of the fire and snoring make it difficult for him to discern whether or not he’s really hearing old music. Not for the first time, in a sensation eerily close to the one he felt in his dream while hiding under the bed, curiosity dangles like a lure for him to bite.

It may just be Beverly and Miriam switching on a playlist on either of their phones to fend off the unsettling quiet of the castle, but logic kicks out the thought. They are two floors above the one he’s standing in, and no phone can be that loud.

Will slips on his jacket, grabs a flashlight, and follows the faint song against his better judgment. He would much rather come face to face with a trespasser than confirm that it’s all inside his head again.

The entrance hall stretches on endlessly to his left. To his right is the staircase. He briefly stops to listen, ears picking up on the crackling quality of the music. Will takes a right.

He keeps the flashlight off as he climbs the staircase, measuring his footsteps as he does every time he comes up for his watch. At the first landing he can hear Beverly’s voice, the hallway they use as a vantage point illuminated by electric lanterns. It’s cause for some ease, to hear something so tangible and real, and it works to cement Will’s nerves.

He doesn’t approach them, mounting the second flight of stairs that lead to the fourth and fifth floors. 

The castle’s layout is strange as it is, designed with aesthetics in mind rather than practicality. The main staircase, for example, skips a floor between landings. A much smaller set of stairs is hidden on the main levels, leading down to the even-numbered floors. The place is a labyrinth, making him feel better about having gotten lost.

Flicking on the flashlight, he aims it down the corridors to his left, right, and up front. All three look the same, with the exception of the one on the right. That one is lined by stained glass windows that face the front of the castle. Moonlight casts bluish reflections against the opposite wall.

The other two offer tapestries and no lighting, the occasional chair and decorative table. Rectangular shapes lighter than the walls tell of old portraits long since gone, and Will feels relieved once realizing it. Better to treat the place like government property rather than a home. This way, the intrusion isn’t as tasteless.

He follows his ears down the corridor on the right and tucks the flashlight back in his jacket pocket, the windows granting enough light for him to see. Wariness keeps his stride measured when his mind betrays him, choosing to replay the nightmare with utmost vividness. He slows to a standstill.

Will’s eyes play tricks on him. No little girls this time, nor humanoid stags standing cleverly hidden in the shadows. Looking outside, his imagination conjures up the image of a person walking the overgrown gardens.

He thinks it might be Chiyoh, only she hasn’t been seen on the premises since granting them access to it. His thoughts supply the possibility of pareidolia, having shadows in an eerie and disconcerting environment create things that wouldn’t otherwise be there.

Or shadow people, as Price, self-proclaimed paranormal expert, had explained in explicit detail.

Will steps closer to the window and looks down, stunned into silence when he finds that it isn’t a trick of the mind.

Moonlight plays with the person walking below as they lean over to touch one of the sculptures overrun with ivy. Plays being a very literal word. The figure sways between being completely visible and completely _invisible_ , and Will attributes it to the clouds that obstruct the moon before sliding on by.

The window is sealed shut, and regardless of how much he rattles it, doesn’t budge. Will tries the one next to it, and then the next, but none of them have been opened in decades and refuse to yield to his palm.

It then hits him that a person that isn’t him, Chiyoh, or the rest of his team, is on castle grounds.

Will doesn’t hesitate, previous trepidation dispelled at the possibility of having the perpetrator back on the scene. Nevermind that it all feels wrong. There is a foreseeable end, and Will is unwilling to pass it up.

He darts down the staircase two by two, gripping the handrailing to keep his balance in the dark. He thinks he might have called out for backup, shouting at Beverly and Miriam when running across the second landing.

Will trips into the parlor to grab the gun from his bag, stumbling over his feet and righting himself as he jogs across the foyer and out the front doors.

The cold smacks into him, paralyzing him for a second until he shakes it off and soldiers on. He hadn’t realized the drop in temperature, but he figures autumn in Lithuania isn’t that different from autumn in Virginia: cold during the day, freezing at night.

Gun up, Will circles the front yard until he’s facing the garden at a safe distance. He closes in, listening for footsteps or crunching earth, but he’s only met with the quiet whistle of sharp wind through trees.

Promptly ignoring the forest at his back, he steps closer to the garden, teeth chattering from the cold. He pauses only to zip up his jacket.

“Who’s there?” he says, breath misting in front of him. “You’re trespassing on private property.” Chances that the intruder understands what he’s saying are slim, but he knows next to nothing of Lithuanian. Here’s to hoping he can convey the right amount of authority with his tone alone.

To his left a shadow darkens, and his gun aims quicker than he turns.

It happens again and again, dark spots appearing and vanishing, baiting him into different and seemingly random parts of the courtyard. The occurrence can’t be natural, its movement caused by a person rather than the moon.

Will curses when the cold becomes too much, debating whether or not to head back inside, but as he turns towards the front doors he sees it.

Sees _him_.

Will doesn’t believe in ghosts, but he figures he’s long overdue for a close encounter he can present as unexplained whenever the topic of aliens pops up over the autopsy table.

The man’s outline is solid enough, the interplay of dark and light shrouding him as soon as he turns his back to Will. It’s chilling to behold, the seamless transformation of something into nothing, and if it weren’t for the burning cold against his neck, he would write it off as yet another dream.

A dozen warnings go up, but Will chases the image of the man past the garden and into the graveyard, hyper-aware of his surroundings in case of an ambush. Instead, what he gets are dozens of fireflies bursting to life, dancing and illuminating the otherwise dark lot.

Will is careful not to trip over fallen headstones and crumbled statues, cautiously walking through the overgrown grass that shines yellow under the bellies of insects. Insects that shouldn’t be thriving this late in autumn, but seem to be concentrating around a fountain at the center of the graveyard.

He’s about to draw his flashlight when his knees collide with a small headstone, sending a jolt of discomfort shooting up his leg and spine. Will takes a limping step back, looking down at the peculiar tiny slab of carved stone.

Kneeling in front of it, fingertips dig into the grooves of the finely carved words. And even if he can’t understand the passage, the name Mischa Lecter catches his attention for little reason other than the size of the grave. No more than a child.

He doesn’t hear the approach, but the sight of legs over the top of the headstone startles him from his hunched position and onto his ass.

“You should not be out here so late,” says Chiyoh, bundled up in her coat and perfectly put together for being the wee hours of the morning. “It’s freezing.”

Will takes a moment to still his rapid heartbeat, sweat beading along his forehead despite the chill. As if summoned by her words, the temperature he has been able to ignore hits him all at once. He shivers, face burning. “There’s someone here. Besides you and me.”

Chiyoh regards him with the same impenetrable silence she always holds around them. Immovable like stone. “I haven’t seen anyone tonight.”

“You just missed him.” Will clenches his jaw when the frigid air makes him stammer. “He went that way.”

“Him?”

“Pretty sure it was a him.”

She continues to stare before finally looking over her shoulder to survey the area, but they’re alone. He watches her walk towards the fountain, fireflies fluttering out of the way. “What did he look like?”

Will gets up, swatting his pants clean. “Tall.”

Chiyoh turns to him. “Tall?”

“It’s, what, two, three in the morning?” he says. “Night vision isn’t one of my talents.”

“Fear makes you rude.” Chiyoh speaks slowly, as if Will would miss the point she’s trying to make. “In that case, how are you certain that what you saw was not a ghost? Do you believe in those, Mr. Graham?”

Tucking his hands under his armpits for warmth, Will consider going back inside and leaving the question unanswered. Too precise and well-timed, the odds that she may be involved in the scheme are high. But while his rational mind screams hoax, another part whispers that it’s all too elaborate to be faked. It feels too real. Yet again, his head isn’t the epitome of clarity at the moment.

“Do _you?_ ” he asks her instead, eyes steady on the headstone he tripped on. He recalls the image of Chiyoh interacting with someone on the first night of the investigation.

She offers him a muted smile, one that’s difficult to see in the waning moonlight. “I think we all do at some point in our lives. It makes the prospect of death easier to accept.”

“Death doesn’t scare me.”

“Then it scared you as a child.”

“Children don’t understand the gravity of it.” He knows. He’s seen his fair share die in the line of duty.

“Because they believe in ghosts,” she says, and her tone suggests that the conversation is over.


	5. Ferryman's Tax

Will has stood ankle deep in blood too many times to accept the possibility of an afterlife. Once the heart stops, when fingers go rigid and eyes go white, it’s the end of the line.

He’s come to relate life to sentences on the pages of a book, each one given meaning by the punctuation at the end. After the period that marks the end of a complete idea, a new sentence begins, and that’s that.

The scene below his feet reminds Will of the stories Mrs. Molina would read to his second grade group, sitting safely on interconnecting foam mats with painted hand prints on them. It’s beautiful like that, inspiring childhood familiarity, but it also carries a very real tinge of fear Will had felt even back then.

“Victim’s yet to be identified,” says Jack, finally showing his face for the first time in days. “Commissar Kazlauskienė informed us there are no missing persons that fit this description. Whoever he is, he’s a foreigner.”

The frozen lake they stand on spans miles to every side, surrounded by snow-capped pines and a solitary mountain to the south. The ice is unnaturally crystalline, lacking the common white sheen of frozen sediments. Nudging aside the small accumulation of snow with his shoe, Will stares at the face that stares right back, unseeing.

“How long ago did it freeze over?”

“About three weeks.” The answer comes from the latest addition to the investigation, a man Jack introduced as Inspector Pazzi from Europol. His graying beard catches the flurries that continue to fall. “It would seem that the perpetrator is not interested in local prey.”

Will lets their voices fade away, but doesn’t allow the pendulum to swing. He can’t. Shutting his eyes to the world will only pull him under the ice as well, drown him the same way the victim did. He does, however, blow away the fog in hopes of understanding how this was orchestrated.

There are no seams, no perforations, no type of mark at all. The surface is pure, showing no possible way that a drowning person could be kept so close and carefully positioned just under the initial layer of ice. He would need tools, equipment. Hell, even heavy machinery, if he were to get creative.

The man is dressed in a heavy, wool coat. Barefoot. Dark hair frozen where it had fanned out like a halo. His eyes, wide and beseeching, are milky blue under the film of frost. Eyes Will swears are blinking up at him, politely asking to be released.

Will steps aside to let Beverly take the photos she needs, nods his head at Price to proceed with the dismantling process. He’s seen what he has to see, and the authorities can take over from there.

A tiny voice whispers into his ear an impossibility, and he would laugh if it weren’t so inappropriate to do so in the current company. Hands in his pockets, Will walks back towards the patrol cars, desperate to get out of the cold.

He stops half way there, however, for no reason other than to look at the treeline to the east. It’s the same forest that circles the castle forty five minutes away, which means, whether they like it or not, they will have to sweep it.

Somewhere past the yawning mouth, an answer awaits. Maybe not _the_ answer, but one they could use, nonetheless.

Bringing the scarf closer to his face, Will turns his sights skyward in defiance. Whatever is trying to eat away at him cannot succeed. He won’t let it do so again.

With that thought, he continues on to the snowy shore, keeping the fact that the victim looks like his father strictly to himself.

***

Clouds gather over the castle grounds, but snow is yet to fall. They get to proofing the parlor windows as best they can.

No one thinks twice of it. Zeller questions why they’re staying here when there are lodgings that offer amenities from this century, that they are, technically, already checked-in and have no real reason to stick around. The remark is met with a shrug.

“It’s like a horror movie,” Price says. He’s taking the sheets off the remaining furniture and carefully folding them so as not to send dust spiraling around the now enclosed parlor. “People get inexplicably attracted to places, hear a whisper down the corridor, the works.”

“Yeah, and you two were messing around with portals into the next dimension.” Beverly jabs a finger in Price’s direction. “If shit goes down, it’s on you two.”

“We were being friendly.”

“You were being idiots.”

“She’s right, you know.” Miriam joins in, waving a portable vacuum that makes Will snort from where he stands, dusting the fireplace. “The moment you decide to engage it, it becomes real. By _it_ I mean the idea that there is something present.” She puts down the vacuum and runs a hand through her hair, tying it back in a loose ponytail.

“The power of suggestion,” Zeller adds. He’s sitting on the cleaner area of the parlor, claiming that ‘exposure to the ancient contaminants’ could trigger an asthma attack. “I say it’s haunted, you believe it’s haunted. Anyone hearing things yet?”

“You mean aside from a five hundred year old castle settling and a forest crawling with wildlife? I think there was a spooky skeleton trying to get into bed with me last night,” Beverly says, wiggling fingers to add a dramatic flair.

Zeller snorts. “Sure it wasn’t Miriam?”

“I feel like I should defend myself by saying that I don’t have the right parts for a boner, and therefore I can’t be a skeleton.”

This earns her a solemn nod from everyone in the room. “Fair point.”

The conversation carries on, switching from subject to subject as they attempt to make the area livable.

Will takes on the heavier workload, patching up holes and sealing up entrances that may leave them exposed to the elements and intruders alike. He makes sure to pay close attention to his routes.

While the earlier exchange had been entirely humorous, he can’t help clinging to the shred of comfort that his co-workers are right. The mind is so excruciatingly powerful, birthing situations and crafting false scenarios so effortlessly, it’s a wonder how well one can hold onto sanity. Will has experienced the full force of a sick mind firsthand. He knows what it is to see things that aren’t there, to make connections that don’t exist, and genuinely believe that they do.

There are no such things as ghosts.

The man in the lake won’t haunt him.

The shadows in the graveyard are just that. Shadows.

Will sneezes.

“Taking anything for that?” Beverly offers, dropping a bucket full of water beside an uncomfortable looking divan. “You’ve been at it since yesterday.”

“To think I’d be immune to the cold here,” he says.

“Your place isn’t as moldy.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s the weather rather than the _ancient contaminants_ in the air.” He says so mockingly, trying his best Zeller impression. “It feels like I’ve been dumped into a lake and then left there to air dry.” It’s more literal than figurative, given that he did dream he was drowning. When he woke up, he could feel water clogging up his throat, which gave way to the scratching feeling that hasn’t left since.

“There’s antihistamines in the medkit, and Miriam brought bottled water from her food run. Don’t ask me how she got good at Lithuanian, of all the languages to pick up.”

“I’m more concerned with where we’re going to store the groceries.”

“Zee found what would be the kitchen down the hall. He talked about getting electricity in here, but let’s be honest. One, this place hasn’t seen action since the fifties. Two, Zee knows more about crocheting than he knows about wiring.”

“I could give it a try.” Will rubs the corner of his eyes, the burning a constant annoyance and a tell-tale sign of fever. 

He should knock back the pills and try his hand at sleeping for the first time in a couple of days, but doing so will most likely result in a worse headache. The crime scene is still too fresh, and he can’t erase the image of his hands holding his father below the surface.

“No offense, but you look like shit.” Beverly steps closer but doesn’t touch his forehead, knowing better. “Have you considered heading back to the lodge and sleeping on an actual bed? Come back once you look a lot less like a zombie.”

Will shrugs. “Moving around keeps me from shutting down.”

“And no rest won’t do you any good.” She rubs a thumb against a smudge on the window, beside the one Will is currently trying to jam back into the place. The wooden frame keeps splintering around the force and there are still several more inches before it can lock into place. “If exhaustion is what you’re looking for, I got something for that, too.”

Will steps back from the window, briefly considering kicking it. “I’ll pass on the Nyquil.”

“There’s also a more _natural_ way to get blissed out, you know.”

“Marijuana?”

“No, dummy. I’m talking about sex.”

He sighs, theatrically. “Bev, how many times do I have to turn you down?” He stops to sniff, nose uncomfortably clogged. “You’re just not my type.”

Beverly grins. “You mean smart, strong, and drop-dead gorgeous?” To prove the point, she takes hold of the window’s edge and tugs it until it's aligned to the frame. Then, with two taps of her fist to the lower corner, the window falls into place with ease. “The bartender, however, seems to be right up your alley.”

“Don’t you start with me. I’m a sick man, see?” He wheezes out a cough, but a smile threatens the corners of his mouth. Not because of the bartender, but because of the lengths Beverly would go to make sure he’s somewhat functioning.

“Oh, come on. Guy was totally up on your grill.”

“The guy was this close to instigating an orgy.”

“Great! That probably means he’s a connoisseur of casual sex. In, out, and it’s all over.” She bites her lower lip, and starts making a crude gesture with her hands. “And in, and out, and in, and out…”

“Stop that.”

“It’ll help you sweat out the fever, too. A two for one.” Will flips her off. “When’s the last time you got laid, anyway?”

“That’s a very personal question.”

“Who’s getting laid?” Price appears by the doorway, looking down at the bucket, then to the window. “Jack said fraternization with the locals was a no-no.”

“He never said that,” Beverly says, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “Besides, even if he did, it’s not like he’s been around to find out.”

“Because he’s been out doing his job,” Will quips, fixing her with a pointed look. “Which is why I’m staying here and keeping an eye out. You said so yourself, it’s common for killers to revisit the scene of the crime.”

“It’s been over a week.”

“Less than a day if we’re taking the lake spirit into account.” Will reaches for the roll of plastic in one of the boxes, and gets to proofing the last of the space. Beverly and Price are both looking at him, thoughtfully, and he braces for impact.

“Lake spirit?” Price steps into the room, narrowing his eyes. “Why lake spirit?”

“You think they’re related,” Beverly speaks over him, head tilting to the side. “How?”

“Fairy tales,” Will reminds them. He heaves a sigh, which triggers another sneeze. He searches for a rag, but when that fails, he uses his sleeve to clean under his nose. He feels miserable. “First, we had the queen of serpents, and now there’s...this.”

“Popsicles don’t exactly scream _It’s a Small World_.”

“You should probably _let it go_ , Graham.” Price snorts, and it takes Will a moment to realize what it is he’s said. “Overplayed, but still good.”

“Now I’m gonna have the fucking song stuck in my head,” Beverly says. “Fairy tales aside, we don’t have anything else to go on.”

“A location.” Will sits on one of the chairs propped up against the wall, mindful of its thin legs. Pressure steadily builds at his temples, worsening his already sour mood. “The forest. You two know that already.”

They do, but just like the jittery hollowness that makes them ignore why they insist on staying here, they keep bringing up excuses as to why they shouldn’t wander inside. Granted, the investigation shouldn’t move forward without sanctioning from the local law enforcement, but Will feels like they aren’t doing enough.

He does, in part, understand where the hesitation comes from. Instinct tells him to run, but Will’s unable to determine whether he should run towards or away from the gaping maw of the forest. The pull is magnetic, like standing on a field and gazing at a tornado despite knowing that death is imminent.

Questions and situations they are all trying to readily avoid, even if it means stalling the investigation and delaying the return home. Fear runs so deep, it’s not even in the forefront of their minds. It lingers quietly, waiting, and they put it off. Like Will is putting off pressing Jack for a search time. Like they’re all putting off pressing deeper into the castle, despite having mapped most of it by now.

Somewhere in them a defense mechanism has kicked in. The problem is, none of them exactly knows what the mechanism is defending them against.

And Will might be thinking too much into it. Hauntings are purely psychological, and all he has to do is weather through it until he gets back to Virginia. Once home, he’ll strap himself in for a scan to see if his brain is slowly cooking away again while displacing the reality around him. He only has to power through a few short weeks, and safety will welcome him once again in the form of seven balls of fur and a little homestead in the middle of nowhere.

Closing his eyes and digging fingers into their corners, he says, “He’s either using the forest as his homebase, or he uses it to get around. There will either be a shed, or a well marked, worn path. We should contact Wildlife, and get our hands on a hunters listing, if they have one.”

Will stops talking and waits for the inevitable arguments, the constant hammerings determined to tear down his explanations until nothing but bedrock is found.

His eyes blink open at the lack of a retort, and he finds himself in another room altogether.

Cold and cluttered, Will buries his nose into his sleeve when dust motes swirl in the afternoon sunlight. He doesn’t move from where he’s sitting - no, _standing_ \- as he tries to push down on the crippling sense of nausea that knots wickedly in his stomach. He gasps for air, and, ignoring the potential to worsen his congestion, lowers his arm to check his watch.

Three hours, since last he checked.

The weightless void of realizing he’s lost time settles in the middle of his chest, and Will can’t help the helpless whimper that trembles deep in his sore throat. To think that it’s all happening again after he’d gotten so well.

He takes steadying breaths, mostly through his mouth, as he assesses his surroundings. A single large window on the east wall faces a garden four stories down. The rest of the room is nondescript, stacked with old boxes, and a rolled up rug rests propped up beside the doorless frame.

Will squeezes his eyes shut in desperate hope that time would reverse, that he’s only locked in a nightmare, but opening them only tells him that he might be dreaming after all.

He starts at the sight of a little girl standing ten feet in front of him.

He blinks once, twice, and were she an apparition, she’d be gone by now, but she’s not. She stands there, hands clasped politely in front of her, a frilly, pale blue dress reaching her knees. She can’t be a day over seven years old, and Will feels his heart clench. Were her hair darker, she’d be a mirror image of Abigail.

He opens his mouth, and then shuts it. He tries again, and again, but words fail him each time. She shouldn’t be here. He wants to ask if her parents are close by, but something whispers it’s best not to ask. He might not like the answer.

The little girl tips her head to the side, curiously looking Will over.

He knows then, with utmost certainty, who she is.

Before he can so much as utter a syllable, the little girl is turning her head towards the hallway at her back. Will sees there, standing in front of the corridor’s windows, a man to whom he can also put a finger. Broad-shouldered and regal, as immovable as the castle walls around him, Will recognizes him as the shadow he chased out into the graveyard.

His eyes fall on the little girl again, all blonde hair and eyes too dark to discern their color. Will wants to laugh with relief, because accepting madness is much easier than teetering along the edge of uncertainty.

God knows he can’t put a name as to how or why he knows, but Will accepts it for what it is: a fever dream.

“You’re Mischa, aren’t you?” Her widened eyes are answer enough. “Hello,” he says, crouching down to equal their height difference. Will offers her his friendliest smile, but she immediately backs away at the proximity.

He watches her turn, the little dress swaying around her legs before she skips up to the man in the hall. Mischa latches onto him, her small hand pinching the fabric of his pants. The man gently puts his hand over her head, and Will creeps closer, wanting to get a better look at him. He can’t.

Will can only stare in bewilderment as they both turn away from the window and towards the staircase, neither talking, or doing much of anything. What Will can’t understand is why he can’t _see_ while his eyes are on them. Perception skews when he knows there are people, yet it’s impossible to describe much else. No details to pick up, nothing to make them individual, and yet they are.

Standing up, he walks out into the hallway and takes a quick left, only to be met with an empty staircase. He grips the banister with one hand, and clenches the other. Unfortunately, the sharp bite of nails against his palms isn’t enough to wake him up.

All around, the castle creaks and groans, muttering stories of decades long passed. Will listens for anything, whispers or murmurs, but all he gets for his troubles is a steady hum behind his ears. It envelops him like static, lulling.

Light comes from sources he can’t name, warming the massive building with its pale yellow glow. From where he stands on the staircase, he can see a place that is well-lived in, rather than an abandoned fortress. He can smell the faint scent of spices, and feel the soft vibrations of an instrument standing his hairs on end.

Will descends, certain that, at any moment, a bustle of people will burst through the front doors engaged in lively chatter. They don’t, and he reminds himself that it’s all a dream. A relatively nice one, considering his history.

He does, eventually, bump into someone, and he has been expecting her. “Chiyoh.”

Chiyoh nods her head once in greeting from her place by the foot of the staircase. She climbs one step and stops, hands firmly by her side. Seeing her without a rifle is the strangest thing so far. “Mr. Graham. I am surprised to see you here.”

“You mean _still_ here.” He rubs his hands together, suddenly feeling very cold. “The investigation’s still not over.”

“It is not.” Not a question, but a mere observation. “Lingering will only make it harder to leave, and a toll must be paid.”

“There’s someone here,” he says, mouth dry. “I think it’s Mischa. And someone else.”

Chiyoh looks down at his hands, then up at his face. “I thought you did not believe in ghosts.”

“I don’t.”

“Then, whatever did you see?”

Will clears his throat, lifting his gaze well over Chiyoh and towards the foyer. Nothing has changed, but something feels different. Heaviness settles in the marrow of his bones. “Who is he?”

“Perhaps your investigation will shed light on his identity.”

“Can’t you just tell me?”

“I wish not to,” she says, face a perfect mask of impassiveness.

Unrepentant anger simmers just under the surface of his skin, growing hot enough to scorch flesh from bone when a vision shimmers into being by the foyer doors.

He tries to close the distance by bounding down the staircase, but Chiyoh stands between him and the young girl.

Will rages against the cage that surrounds him, keeping him trapped. “Let me by.”

“How much are you willing to give?”

“She’s just a little girl. Let me go to her.”

Chiyoh doesn’t move, but she extends an open palm towards him. “One must choose whether to remain with the living, or dwell with the dead. People like you and I are not granted the luxury of both.”

He tears his sight away from the little girl to stare down on the hand that waits for payment. “Who gets to decide that?”

The hand falls back to Chiyoh’s side. “We are not designed to linger between, Will.”

The bars fall away and Will staggers forward those last three steps, onto the main floor. “We’re not designed for a lot of things. When’s that ever stopped us?”

“Pay close attention to where you tread. Some birds are not worth helping.”

Chiyoh’s voice echoes around him, and to his grief, the image of the little brown-haired girl disappears before he can reach her.


	6. Pathways

The intention is to call Alana, ask how she and the dogs are doing. That’s what he tells himself along the drive up to the pub on the hill, pushing Beverly’s absurd suggestion out of his head. He could use the company, if only to clear out the fog that looms behind his eyes. Last night was particularly difficult to handle once he came to, still unsure of what was real and what was not.

The early hour guarantees him an empty space to park in near the entrance, and he stays buckled until long after he’s cut off the rental’s engine.

Three more cars are scattered across the lot, two of which are now familiar, most likely owned by the pub’s employees. Snow has come and melted, leaving puddles along the pavement. Will makes note that it isn’t October yet, and wonders if this is the average weather pattern for this part of Europe.

Lowering the visor, he frowns at his reflection. His nose is a raw pink from rubbing at it too much. Watery, reddish eyes betray his lack of sleep and the constant sneezing. Chapped lips are a testament to how high his fever rose, and, overall, he should turn the car back on and head for his room at the hotel.

Instead, Will wraps his scarf tightly around his neck, careful that it covers his face up to his nose. He looks ridiculous, but he gets out of the car regardless.

The pub is warm enough to make him shed his coat once he’s inside, hanging it on the rack by the front door. Tiny bells announce his entrance, and Will immediately regrets his decision to come.

“Well, if it isn’t Will Graham.”

There are a few amount of noises that effectively drive Will to the point of snapping, and this is definitely one of them. The same can be said for faces, and while his father did instill in him vast amounts of respect towards women, this is one Will can’t help but imagine ridding the world of. He would be doing humankind the favor.

“You’re a long way from Baltimore, Freddie.”

“A good story has no borders.”

“Neither does it have boundaries, apparently.” Will briskly walks past her, his attention then falling to Antony whose back is towards him as he prepares coffee. He sits at the bar, elbows on the surface. “The usual.”

Antony turns his head to him and offers a casual and strangely professional smile. “Right away, sir. Bacon or sausage? Though, I highly recommend the sausage. Directly imported from England.”

Will would snort if he could, but he does nod in both agreement and gratitude. The last thing he needs is Freddie Lounds pressing on personal matters. More than she already has, anyway.

“Make that two orders and add it to his tab,” Freddie says, talking the stool next to him. “How are you, Will? Looking a little under the weather.”

Will doesn’t answer, doesn’t even look at her when Antony passes him the mug that was clearly meant for her.

“Still giving me the silent treatment, I see. Well, I promise to get out of your hair once I get what I came here for.”

He sighs against the rim of the mug, steam unclogging his nasal passages. He knows he’s going to regret that, but the heat feels wonderful. “When’s that ever been enough for you? You could strip us all to the bone and it still wouldn’t be enough.”

“That is true. Unfortunately, I’m pressed on time,” she says, crossing her legs and looking more like a pin-up than a tabloid reporter. Not for the first time, he wonders how much her website generates, considering the designer outfits and expensive accessories. “I’m meeting someone back at Quantico in three days, and I’d like to get your side of the story before I get theirs.”

“No one is going to give you anything.”

“You’d be surprised how far a few favors can get you. Now,” she pulls out a tiny recorder from her bag and places it between them on the counter, “I know we’re in public, but I doubt anyone here speaks English. Aside from the Brit, of course. No need to hold back on the grizzly details.”

Will laughs humorlessly, the sound awkward in his ears. He sets the mug down and crosses his arms on the bartop, fixing her with an unimpressed stare. “What makes you think I’m going to spill my guts out to you this time?”

Two breakfast platters are placed in front of them, and Will thanks Antony before he reaches for the phone by the kitchen door.

“I was hoping we wouldn’t have to resort to blackmail.”

“You’ve got nothing on me.”

“Aside from that one comment.” She smiles, bright and innocent. “ _It’s not very smart to piss off a guy who thinks about killing people for a living._ I may be paraphrasing, but I’ve been saving that one for a special occasion.”

Looking away when he realizes he’s not wearing his glasses, he busies himself with his mug again.

Jack already knows about that stint, and Freddie’s readership is well acquainted with the eccentric and _probably homicidal_ special agent. The phrase would amount to nothing but more side-eyes on the streets from those who recognize him. Hardly anything new.

“Or, I could always shed some new light on the Hobbs case. Have you anything to add to that, Mr. Graham?”

Will’s jaw clenches. “Already recycling old stories, Freddie?”

“Everybody loves a mystery.”

“There’s no mystery,” he says, putting down the mug with enough force to make the coffee slosh onto the counter. “The case is closed.”

“Garret Jacob Hobbs killed all those girls but no bodies were ever found. I’ve read best-sellers with that same plot, and it makes a damn good mystery.”

“You _know_ why the bodies were never found.”

“According to you, he ate them. Fed them to his family. Yet, the Bureau never really followed up on that due to insufficient evidence, which makes me wonder.” Unraveling her utensils, Freddie picks up her fork and pierces a sausage link. She inspects it, but doesn’t bring it any closer to her mouth. “What made you think they were cannibals?”

Will doesn’t really have an answer for that. Like a lot of his jumps, he just knows. It’s all in the evidence, really, but people are too narrow-minded to see, and he’s too winded to explain. Even to Jack, all he ever gives are watered down versions of his reconstructions. As hard as it is to get in the mindset of killers, it’s harder yet to step out of them.

“Better yet, let’s talk about Abigail Hobbs.”

“This conversation is over.”

“Not until I say it is.” She puts the sausage back down and reaches for a diagonal slice of toast. This she eats, but only barely. “Your connection to her has never been fully explained, but there is another connection that intrigues me. To the point of flying to Lithuania to ask.”

“You could have just given me a fucking call.” Will bites his tongue, rage simmering.

Freddie dabs her fingers against a napkin, using her other hand to push back her red mane. She’s stalling for dramatic effect, and it takes a colossal amount of strength not to throw the mug at her. “Were you aware that Marissa Schurr was once employed by the Hobbs family as a babysitter?”

Will’s first reaction is to scoff, disbelieving. However, Freddie’s brand of journalism isn’t built on lies, but exploitation of the truth. She isn’t lying, he knows she’s not, but he takes the information with a grain of salt, keeping his features impassive.

He takes up the mug again, staring unseeing at the liquor bottles behind the bar. He wonders if he can convince Antony to serve him a glass. At least spike his second cup of coffee.

“You know what that means, don’t you?” Freddie doesn’t give him a chance to catch up, hoping to back him up into a corner. “I may be grasping at straws, but, officially speaking, the only link between these cases is you.”

The already splitting headache worsens. “What are you insinuating?”

“Does there need to be any insinuation? I’m just pointing out facts you might have missed.” She looks at his mug, and raises a thin eyebrow at the absence of her own. “Would you mind, please?”

Antony looks up from where he’s polishing glasses, his smile brilliant. “Of course.” 

Will watches him move about, putting on a brew before reaching for the milk.

“It would make for an eye-catching headline. _The Minnesota Shrike flies to the Old World._ ”

“Yeah, you’re right. That would be catchy,” Will says, carefully picking away at what he can and shouldn’t say. Freddie has an uncanny ability to twists words in her favor. “It would also be incorrect. The Shrike is dead, and it would be best not to poke him. Story’s over.”

“Abigail Hobbs was still alive when she arrived at the hospital.” Her words cut sharper than any knife. “She was stabilized. She was recovering. I don’t believe she died six days later due to staff neglect. I’m not satisfied with that ending.”

This stinging in his eyes is far more than just fever. “Neither am I.” He remembers the events of that day perfectly well. His trembling hands to Abigail’s slit throat, sitting beside her unconscious body in the ambulance, hating himself for not getting to the Hobbs’ residence sooner.

The front doors open, effectively cutting the conversation short. 

The two officers that enter the pub are ignored until they come to stand at either side of Freddie, both asking questions neither of them understand.

To Will’s surprise, Antony answers in clear Lithuanian, setting Freddie’s coffee down on the bartop. The exchange is short, brisk, and Will gets the gist of what they’re discussing before anything is translated.

Freddie turns her trademark smirk on them, one meant to sell good humor, and failing. “Is there a problem here?”

“No problem whatsoever,” Antony explains, holding up his hands and smiling bright. “They’re just politely trying to escort you out of the establishment, is all.”

She turns to him, curls bouncing at the quick movement. “Excuse me? I haven’t done anything.”

“Clearly you are harassing a patron.” Antony lowers a hand to gesture at Will, who takes it all in with raised eyebrows. “The gentleman came in for a much needed breakfast, and you’ve been accosting him with questions he clearly doesn’t want to answer.”

Freddie turns her attention to Will while secretly attempting to slip the recorder back in her bag. He lets her. “All you needed to do was say so,” she mock whispers, stepping off the stool with no short amount of grace. “Can you please tell these ladies I’ll gladly show myself out?”

“I’m afraid that’s not how it works here, Miss Lounds.” Antony tries his best to sound apologetic, but the perpetual look of mirth on his face defeats all attempts. “You can either allow them to escort you out, or spend a lovely evening _downtown_ , as you Americans call it.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Will says around his mug, sparing her no further attention.

He hears her indignant huffs as Antony waves them off, saying something about coffee, which is a word Will has become familiar with by now. He’s most likely offering them free cups for their service.

The front door closes, and another customer says something that makes Antony laugh.

“He says he was ready to throw her out himself. Her voice is so grating.”

Will offers him a small smile, looking over at the phone. “You called them?”

“Had a feeling she was trouble the moment she walked in looking like she owned the world. Her name sounded familiar, and then I remembered you had mentioned her before.” He slides her untouched plate to the side, and pushes the one in front of Will closer towards him. “Eat. Mother always told me to feed a cold.”

Will sniffs, his face warming when reminded that he looks like shit. He presses a hand to his scarf, and picks up his fork with the other one. “Was that all she told you?”

“Be nice to strangers, change your toothbrush every two months, and be wary of cute American men with pretty hair. She always said they were heartbreakers.”

“As subtle as an ax to the head.”

“Subtlety is dead, my friend. Heartbreakers do inspire the best of poetry.”

“How maudlin of you.”

Antony graciously nods his head and nudges the plate again, saying nothing more.

Will slowly makes his way through breakfast, grateful that his nose has shown mercy. Not that the food tastes much like anything, the cold stealing that comfort away from him. He does wallow in the pleasure of having something warm in his stomach, and, if he’s being completely honest, he enjoys the attention.

Antony is fairly handsome, his demeanor youthful for his age. He’s disastrously charming to the point that Will doesn’t doubt the man gets what he wants with just a batting of his eyelashes over gray eyes. In short, he’s everything Will is not.

But at the moment, Will isn’t happy about the look he’s being given. Rather than the permanently flirtatious arched eyebrow, Antony’s features have smoothed out into something that isn’t entirely concern. Thoughtful, maybe.

“Ask,” Will says, moving the last of his scrambled eggs around the plate. “I know you want to.” He was already there for most of what Freddie said.

“Plenty of people are desperate to pry the package open, but they hardly care about the contents when they fail to find what they expect.” Antony traces a fingertip over the polished wood. “I’m curious, endlessly so, but I won’t ask.”

Will stares at his chin, allowing his hands to rest palm down on the bartop. He leans forward, bold but proper enough for a public place. “It would be best to remain impersonal.”

Antony looks like he might refute, but there’s an edge of understanding that Will appreciates. He’s a man on the run from demons Will has no business asking about, and that gifts them a sense of camaraderie.

“It would also be best not to mix business with pleasure, but I’m always willing to push boundaries. Among other things.”

“You’re terrible,” Will says, shaking his head.

“Only in certain aspects.” Antony straightens up once Will is finished eating, balancing a plate over the other. “Stop by once you’re feeling better, and I could show you what I’m _not_ terrible at.”

“Ah.” Will’s throat burns when he swallows, but it isn’t enough to dampen the incredulous grin that pulls at his split lips. “Hell.”

Antony laughs, the sound rich and settling into the odd bits and ends of the pub like it belongs there. “Just this once, I’ll concede that the pink on your cheeks is the cold’s fault.”

***

Once more, Will finds his intentions shredded to pieces.

Driving out of the pub in a strangely pleasant mood, he fully intended crashing at his hotel room for a couple of hours, until he’s certain that his head wouldn’t split open from the migraine. Instead, he drives through the imposing gates of Lecter Castle.

Noon is still a long time away, but even in the pale sunlight the forest looms in front of him. Will walks right up to the treeline, near where Marissa Schurr’s body was found, but goes no further. He peers through two sturdy oaks, and visibility is good for about fifty feet before the canopy obscures everything else.

Forests usually pose no threat to Will, having purchased his piece of land specifically for the sprawling acres of woodland just outside his back door. Wild animals often skim the perimeter in search for food, and deer have been known to chip the wooden banisters of his porch, but Will only considers it a mild inconvenience. Animals simply follow their nature.

Beyond the trees, Will’s haven spreads out across uneven ground. It is isolation in its purest form, safety despite the inherent dangers of lurking predators. These are creatures Will expects to hunt him.

What stands before him now is an abomination.

He is intimately familiar with how a forest is supposed to breathe and bustle with life, but not this. Trees stand like teeth in a mouth that only devours, heaves in air to fill its lungs but never exhales. Secrets are consumed and digested, but never returned to the Earth. This forest watches and waits for him to act.

Whoever the perpetrator is, Will commends him for doing such a bangup job on psychologically twisting everyone involved in the case. The way the facts all come together to tell a story so whimsical and magical. Will would almost call it art, if the story didn’t call him for an active role.

He called Jack during the drive over and gave him the information Freddie Lounds had spilled. He then tried calling Miriam, but the disposable phone informed him of something he couldn’t make sense of. He figures he’s out of minutes, although he shouldn’t be, given he rarely calls anyone unless he absolutely needs to. His own phone is still missing.

Will slips his hands into his pockets and takes a step back, looking up, then to the right. He notices that the trees are planted in a perfect line, as if someone had placed them there centuries ago. The ground is disturbed along several roots, but nothing out of the ordinary.

He debates whether or not to step inside. Logically, nothing would happen if he crossed that first line of trees. Illogically, it feels like crossing that line would only be the beginning of a deeper spiral.

But it _calls_. Not with words or sounds, or anything he can place in a solid idea. It blooms hot like a premonition in the base of his skull, like the temptation to look over his shoulder at the darker area of a room when walking around the house at the dead of night.

Falling leaves dance for him, a smooth and gentle twirl.

Will sucks in a breath when he notices he’s stepped close, hands now steady against tree bark.

He stumbles back with the intention of heading towards the car, but movement catches his attention.

Tucked near one of the castle wings is a greenhouse, the remaining windows covered in thick grime and ivy. There’s someone inside, slowly moving about, and Will immediately heads towards them, desperate to fill the void around him with actual sound. He needs to be grounded.

Will stumbles over a rock, only barely managing to catch himself on the doorway to the greenhouse. He clears his throat, expecting Chiyoh, but who he sees instead roots him in place.

His heart beats so fast, he feels faint.

On the far side of the greenhouse, tending to an empty pot, is the man Will has come to deem familiar.

Will squints. He looks around, then down at his watch, then mentally recites the usual mantra. _My name is Will Graham. I’m in a greenhouse with a stranger. The time is 10:47AM._ He had hoped facing this would be easier during daylight, but as it is, things that shouldn’t be present disturb no matter the hour.

Sunlight pours in through missing window panes and shines across the floor littered with dry foliage, as if the man isn’t there. He looks solid enough, right down to the light checkered pattern of his suit.

The man’s hands move around as if he were working, but there’s nothing there to work on. No flowers, no tools, nothing. Just an empty pot.

Unlike last night, Will gathers the strength to push words out of his mouth. “Excuse me.”

The man stops, but doesn’t immediately move. When he does, it’s to fix Will with an unhappy look. To Will’s consolation, he appears to be as confused as him.

“Are you from around here?” he asks, slowly, as if that would help breach the language barrier. “I keep seeing you around, with the little girl. Mischa?”

Eyebrows furrow at the mention of the name, and Will can finally make out more of the silhouette. His deep-set eyes are as dark as the little girl’s, cheekbones high. Fairly average looking and distinctively local, but, most importantly, human - if Will continues to ignore the fact that, rather than casting a shadow, the sun simply filters through him, unobstructed.

“Can you understand anything I’m saying?” To his surprise, the man slowly nods. “English, then? Parlez-vous français?”

Those eyes remind Will of the eyes of stags.

The man cants his head but doesn’t otherwise move, staring at Will so sharply he’s forced to step back when static lifts the hairs at the back of his neck. Human, maybe, but that doesn’t equate to friendly.

Will comes to understand that he’s intruding. He shouldn’t be here, in this castle, looking into things that aren’t his business even though they are. The man in front of him doesn’t want him here in the same way the forest rejects him, by reeling him in. Luring him into a trap.

Chiyoh’s warning, dreamed or not, now has context.

But just as Will stumbled into the greenhouse, the man is gone within the blink of an eye. No trace or evidence that he’d ever been there, and Will shivers when the cold makes itself known.

Wrapping his arms around himself, a shuddering exhale leaking out of him, Will clamps down on the powerful wave of fear that uncurls deep in his core.

He doesn’t want to believe in ghosts.


	7. Faust’s Hesitance

Jack declares him grounded for the next couple of days, or until the fever breaks. “I need you on top of your game,” he said, in the same stern tone of voice he uses on Price and Zeller when they make inappropriate remarks at crime scenes. “You start seeing ghosts, I’m going to send you home.”

“I’m fine,” Will had assured him for the umpteenth time.

That had been that. Everyone knows Jack won’t relinquish Will’s service just yet, not until the case is locked and buried. Thankfully, Freddie Lounds’ tidbit has opened new doors towards leads no one had considered. Most of them dead ends for now, but Will is willing to stake his reputation that the connection is the key to solving this.

In the meantime, Will takes the long hours of blissful quiet to go through Marissa’s photos. With the rest of the team on the road, he confines himself to the parlor. The sky outside is dark enough to merit the use of the chandelier he and Miriam had successfully rewired, but the way it continues to sway bothers him, especially with the windows secured to not let in the biting winter breeze.

Pushing all stimuli away, Will shuts his eyes and lets the pendulum swing.

There are small but pointed changes from what he had seen on his first day here: a girl running through moonlit fields, carefree and unafraid. His own hands gripping her shoulders and lifting her, mounting her lithe body on the iron spikes as she still kicked and looked at him with wide eyes. Blood gushes down the tree to pool at his feet, nourishing the forest floor.

She doesn’t struggle as he undresses her, somehow managing to get the dress on her without soiling or ripping it. No stitching, no taping. Unblemished, yet put on her after she had been displayed. Her snake crown is still alive, settling over her dark hair as if ready to sleep.

Will reaches out to touch her cheek, growing cold as life begins to bleed out of her. There’s something there, just beyond the curtain of her hair, that ties him to this. Carding his fingers through it to push it aside, he’s reminded of heavy bed sheets under a creaking bed of a lonely house. 

A monster lurks in the corner of his room, on top of his bed, and it lurks just past the tree, just outside his line of vision. The monster stands in front of Marissa Schurr and she trusted it, had played with it as one would with a child.

“What did you give me?” he asks her, studying the light that slowly bleeds from her eyes. The question isn’t the correct one. “What do I need to take?”

A resounding crash rips him from the reconstruction, heart lodged in his throat as he gasps for air, lungs suddenly too empty. The inhales quickly devolve into a coughing fit, his sore back protesting the abuse as he tries to reel himself back to functionality.

Sweat beads in uncomfortable places, and he tries drying his palms against his pants only to end up clutching them until the tremors subside. The back of his eyes burn with tears not entirely related to the fever. Tiredness settles in him once again, the constant lethargy that not even sleep can dispel.

For a moment he thinks the crash was all in his head, but footsteps quickly put an end to that idea. They stop right outside the parlor, and Will really doesn’t want to look. He knows that whatever is going to be standing there won’t help tether him to the here and now.

The footsteps start up again, this time walking towards him and he immediately closes his eyes, not wanting to see. He already knows who it is, the tiny sounds only possibly belonging to tiny shoes. Last time, he knew he was dreaming. Now, he’s painfully aware of being awake.

The little girl waits with the patience of the dead, and Will finds he can’t outlast it.

“There was a girl here,” he says, doubting she can understand him. “She was hurt a couple of weeks ago. Did you ever see her?” She doesn’t answer, unsurprisingly, and Will begrudgingly opens his eyes.

Mischa stands before him with hands clasped in front of her, her polished, black shoes stark against the burgundy and gold rug. Her dress is a powdery blue.

He knows he shouldn’t engage whatever this is, hallucination or else, but naming gives power and she has a name. If so, if it is all in his mind, Will considers himself to be a step ahead of his madness.

“You remind me of someone,” he says instead. Sitting on the floor with his back against the divan, she stands taller than him.

Mischa kneels on the rug and looks down at the photos, her straight hair cascading forward as her fingers touch the glossy finish. She picks one up and Will doesn’t think of stopping her when she fails to react at the frozen gore. Her eyes narrow, curiously, and picks up another one. He watches her arrange them in no specific order, the same way a child pretending to know what they’re doing would, and smiles.

“Marissa,” he says, tapping one of the photos.

Mischa turns her head to look behind her, out the windows, before turning to him with a frown. She frames her chin with her fingers in a thoughtful gesture and squints down at the photos, and then at him, before a something lights up behind her eyes.

She stands up in a single bound, all childish energy, and waves her hand for him to follow.

Will hesitates. He looks out to see if he can spot what spurred Mischa into action, but all that awaits outside are pregnant clouds that carry the first snow of this region. “What is it?” he asks her, but she’s already walking towards the main corridor.

Nerves make his fingers twitch, common sense telling him to stay put and not wander into a castle he’s already gotten lost in once.

“Will!”

He starts at the sound of his name, the soft voice so heavily accented making the delusion all the more real. He swallows around the thick knot in his throat, pushes up to his feet, and follows.

A cold, heavy pressure settles at the back of Will’s head, an increasing sense of foreboding urging him to turn around and hide in the parlor where he’s safe. It’s not an unfounded anxiety, being perfectly aware of how often he’s been losing time again, but curiosity gets the best of him.

He knows what a hallucination feels like, and this is different. During an episode, everything feels _normal_ to the point where he doesn’t question the validity of what is happening, whereas here, he’s perfectly aware that something is viscerally wrong. More a waking dream than a fabrication of a sick brain.

Will counts each step he takes up the grand staircase, hands tightly gripping the railing. They go up three flights of stairs, a total of six floors, until they reach the last landing. To his relief, she leads them down the east wing, where the electricity is partly functional.

This area of the castle he’s vaguely familiar with, having mapped most of it with the others while they repaired the worst of the damage. Will wonders why they thought that would make a difference, considering they’ve remained on the first floor since calling off the nightly patrol. They insist on making the place livable.

Will slows his stride when he comes across a small, uncapped, ceramic pouring pot on the middle of the floor, filled to the brim with milk. Deciding it’s not the strangest thing he’s come across, he steps around it and pays it no more attention.

“Don’t you ever get scared moving around this place by yourself?” He asks mostly to fill the eerie quiet, as if the castle has attuned itself to listen to his every breath. His ears pop uncomfortably, making him aware of his congestion again. “What about that man? Do you know his name?”

Mischa turns to him with an exasperated look that says _I can hear you talking, but I’ve got no idea what you’re saying_.

Will holds up his hands in apology, and then, a thought hits him. “What about Chiyoh? Do you know her?” Mischa’s smile is bright at the mention of the name.

He recalls the first time he ever spoke to her, how he had thought he had imagined her talking to a little girl. The realization raises so many questions that it worsens his headache, wondering just how far these people are willing to go to pull off such an elaborate hoax. Worse yet is the mystery of what they’re hoping to achieve by it, or what they’re trying to hide.

In broad daylight, it’s easy to claim this all to be fake. Nighttime is an entirely different story.

Mischa says something, a short flourish in the local tongue, and Will frowns at hearing a voice that should be in his head outside of it.

She disappears into the room in which Will first met her, dream or not, and he follows her in.

“Oh, wow.” Different from last time, the room is fully furnished. “This is really neat,” he tells her, trying his best to smile through the confusion.

The windows have been recently cleaned, granting him a full view of the rolling valleys just past the garden and graveyard. He can see the chain of mountains the castle sits on spread far until it disappears from sight, and Will wonders how many acres truly belong to the Lecter estate. If he squints, he can see stables and a barnyard several miles to the west.

The sense of isolation is surreal. It’s no wonder the townsfolk have created so many far-fetched stories about a family rarely seen outside the edges of their own little world.

Turning his attention back to the room, he watches Mischa sit on a small stool and fiddle with a thin booklet he can’t make sense of. She ignores him then, and Will can’t help the small smile that tugs at his mouth. This is something he would do as a kid, too; grab an adult’s attention and then ignore them once they had their company. Makes the time spent a little less lonely.

The area is a music room, he realizes once he peels back sheets, taking in the varied assortment of instruments propped up in their stands. There’s a piano against a corner, and a harpsichord against another. He spots a cello, a viola, a saxophone, and an array of flutes. The rest consists of bookcases he picks away at, pamphlets filled with sheet music, most of them penned by hand.

Will knocks on the wooden frame to get Mischa’s attention. “Do you play any of these?” He manages to get the message across by gesturing with his hands, and she nods enthusiastically. “Which one?”

Mischa plops down from the stool and walks up to the cello, and then the harpsichord, to which she levels out a hand to show that she only knows a little bit.

“Impressive.”

She then makes another hand gesture, this one questioning.

Will gives the room another onceover, walking around it. “I know how to play the guitar, but I don’t think you have one.” There isn’t one that he can see, so, instead, he heads for the piano bench. He strokes his hand across the keys to wipe away the dust, and is surprised to hear the instrument sing in tune. “I can also play the piano.”

He stops talking when the pressure at the back of his head returns, this time accompanied by the now familiar static at the base of his neck.

Will turns towards the door and shivers, finding it and the hallway beyond empty. He holds his breath, half expecting something to step inside the room with them, but nothing does.

Mischa mumbles a question that brings his attention back, her angular face twisted with concern. It’s not a look he wants to see on someone so young. “It’s nothing,” he says, giving her a look he hopes comes off as ease. “Just thought there was someone there.”

He straightens up on the bench to face the piano, ignoring the steadily growing urge to look towards the door again, and flexes his fingers. It’s been a very long time since he’s last done this, but he figures it’s just like riding a bike.

Will begins by testing the keys, searching for anything that may be out of tune. There’s a glowing tonal quality to each step that leaves Will amazed at how well cared for the instrument is.

“Any requests?” he asks, going into the first notes of Claire de Lune. “It’s either this or jazz.” He takes it slower than he should, learning the piano beneath his hands.

The song takes him back to a humid summer night, years ago, in a bar in New Orleans. The usual rhythm and blues had been put on hold for a new kid in town who wanted to have a go at the piano, so they let him. The folks had been nice enough to let the kid switch it up for the night, but Will’s attention had been on the blonde by the bar.

Had it been up to him, he never would have approached her, but one of the guys who had dragged him out that night did the honors of introducing them, much to Will’s embarrassment. He was freshly graduated from the police academy, and she was a nurse, a single mother who wasn’t interested in guys like him.

That didn’t stop her from taking him home. Not much happened, anyway. He got called in the moment he stepped through the motel door. He left his number but she never called, which he guesses was for the best. That was years ago, and he can’t even remember her name.

Will’s thoughts vaguely turn towards another encounter in another bar, to gray eyes and a devastatingly charming smile. There isn’t a doubt in his mind that Antony would show him to his place and not let him leave until after breakfast, until they’ve both gotten what they need from each other.

These types of encounters are easy. A clean in and out, door closed, end of story. Stable relationships were never meant for someone as damaged as him. No one deserves that.

Will sighs as the song slowly changes to a more familiar tune, keys washing a sense of ominous peace over him, a feeling so tentative he fears it will break the moment he opens his eyes. But he does open his eyes, even when he doesn’t want to, because his hands have long since gone still over his lap.

Beethoven’s Sonata continues uninterrupted even when Will stiffens on the bench, eyes fixed on the wall in front of him, refusing to acknowledge what sits beside him. 

Panic freezes up every joint, fight or flight instinct rendered useless because talking to a little girl is one thing. Will is perfectly aware of why, if this _is_ just a fabrication of his mind, he would choose someone like Mischa to project his subconscious. There is no way for him to ignore the similarities between her and Abigail.

As for the man next to him, the same one who lingers just outside his line of sight, that is a far scarier subject matter.

Will breathes slow and deep, dropping his sight to the long fingers that stroke the keys as if they were made for them. Precise and regal, they carry the song with ease born from plenty of practice.

Certain that his heart won’t spontaneously stop beating, Will looks up at him with a pinched brow, trying to convince himself of what he’s seeing.

The man looks real enough, perfectly normal in an elegant button down and embroidered waistcoat. Up close, the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth betray his age, and the stoicness of him reminds Will of antique statues.

He looks down at the man’s hands again, and something within Will just clicks into place. He’s unsure of what it is, but it’s there. There’s a need to _run_ , a little voice that tells him to pack up what he has and not come back, but it goes quiet once the man turns his head to stare at him.

His fingers don’t stop moving, and he makes no other movement, but the gaze alone is enough to hold Will in place. In a few short seconds he’s being studied, dissected like a bug pinned to a board, and there’s nothing remotely warm or comforting about it. This man’s presence is the complete opposite of what Mischa emanates, his aura settling along Will’s spine like déjà vu.

Will huffs out an incredulous laugh. “Are you real?”

The man returns his attention to the piano, the initial hostility in him fading only slightly. “Reality has been strange as of late,” the man says, much to Will’s surprise, in a heavily accented yet perfectly clear English. “Are you?”

“I’m still trying to figure that one out.” The relief is short lived when he realizes that the man emanates no sort of body heat whatsoever. It doesn’t even look like he’s breathing, and the glossy sheen of his dark eyes speak of a body long dead.

Another fever dream, then.

“Will Graham,” he says. “I’d offer my hand but…”

“Names give us power over entities.” The man stops playing then, but doesn’t face him. “Hannibal Lecter. I am delighted to make your acquaintance.” He seems to mean it, but there’s a hesitation there to which Will can relate. “I see you’ve met my sister.”

Will turns to Mischa, who’s now lying on the divan and leafing through the same book from earlier. She pays them little heed.

“Yes, I...wait a minute. Lecter?” He licks his lips, very carefully picking through words to use. “We were informed that the property partially belonged to the government.”

Hannibal’s mouth tilts up in a stiff smile. “No one has lived here for a very long time. Legally, you aren’t trespassing.”

Staring at the wall again, Will finds all of this hard to believe. “Ethically?”

“Ethically, you have spent a considerable amount of time fixing my home. For that, I am grateful.”

“I’m dreaming.”

Hannibal tilts his head at that as if conceding the observation. “Dreams often bridge the gap between reality and fantasy. An event isn’t made any less real because we have slept our way through it.”

“On the contrary, dreams feel more vivid.”

“They can cause physiological changes, which challenges the idea that dreams only involve the mind. When children dream of monsters under the bed, the fear they experience upon waking is no less real.”

Will nods his head, tracing his thumb along the smooth wood. “Then, we grow up, and what hides under the bed doesn’t scare us anymore.”

“Doesn’t it?”

Will refrains from answering, the question digging too deep into horrors both past and present. “What scares you?”

“Plenty,” Hannibal says, his tone flat. “I apologize if the subject is intrusive, or inappropriate for a first meeting.” He pauses, briefly, to look over Will. “It has been a very long time since I’ve engaged anyone in conversation.”

“Not one for small talk? Likewise.”

Will thinks to ask him like he did Mischa, but that same nagging feeling at the back of his head stops him. Not only would it be rude to interrogate Hannibal, real or not, but the answers he might have, if any, might not sit well with him.

The last thing he wants to hear is the ghost in his head telling him that he was the one that mounted Marissa Schurr on iron spikes, however impossible that might be. Will’s grip on reality isn’t as firm as he would like it to be. He really should have a word with Alana about this.

Will surprises himself by looking Hannibal in the eye, seeing a hint of life finally take root behind glossy, dark irises. Mirth touches the corner of Hannibal’s mouth, just an upward tilt that is barely there. The expression sits heavy in Will’s gut, so he looks away.

“You are welcome to stay as long as you like,” Hannibal says, becoming more human by the second. Whatever he’s seen in Will has convinced him of something, and Will is terrified to ask what it is. “The bedrooms are located on the third floor, if the parlor fails to provide privacy.”

“How long have you known we were here?”

Hannibal takes his hands to the piano again, playing a song that makes Mischa speak excitedly. He replies with warm words that are only slightly chastising, and she giggles, standing up from the divan and waving at Will as she walks out the door.

“Long enough. Mischa was the first to notice your presence.”

“How come I’m the only one who can see you two?”

“That seems to be the golden question.” His fingers seem to move on their own, effortlessly creating beautiful music. “One I’ve been asking for several days.”

“Then, you’re aware you’re dead.”

“Yes.”

“You’re lying.”

Hannibal tilts his head to signify that Will has his attention. “About what?”

“Something,” Will says, keeping his eyes on the hands dancing over the keys. “I’m not sure what, but you’re lying about something.”

Will doesn’t see, but he can sense the grin that now splits Hannibal’s face. “Were I to guess, I would say that your empathy allows you to see far more than your companions.”

“You wouldn’t be the first to say so.”

The song ends on a discordant note, Hannibal stopping to look at him again. “Your company will be of great pleasure,” he says, words like muted static.

Will is torn between slipping off of the bench, and reaching out to touch him. One action will grant him the illusion of safety with distance, and the other will prove whether or not the man is real. He looks like flesh and blood, but he feels distinctively other. One false step, and Will falls.

He can recognize danger when he sees it.

Hannibal’s eyes narrow, as if delighted by what he sees on Will’s face. “Clever boy.”

It’s like standing at a cliff's jagged edge, and wanting to see what’s down below.


	8. Horned Beasts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for weird porn.

Recurring dreams aren’t a rarity to Will, so when he opens his eyes to a room he’s seen once before, takes in the creature by the foot of the bed, he manages to keep the helpless sound that tries clawing out of his mouth under control.

Neither moves as shadows warp around the dark corners, become blurred against the stark outline of the ink black monster that towers towards the ceiling. Its antlers expand outward, sharper, and Will’s head is filled with images of being gored.

The creature moves and Will grips the bed sheets, unable to move as he’s pinned by an inhuman stare. He swallows with difficulty as it moves onto the bed, the velvet atop its head dragging up his stomach and chest, tearing his shirt as they go. Skin exposed, it does it again.

The soft chafe of antlers against him is icy, sending shivers down his spine, making goosebumps erupt along his arms. The creature kneels over him, disproportionate limbs spilling from the bed and onto the floor, up the walls, around the ceiling like ivy. Will watches it crawl up his body, its skin rubbery whenever it touches him, always so cold.

He looks away when they’re face to face, eyes darker than black, endless and consuming.

Will tries to ask it what it wants, but no voice comes from him. These types of dreams he’s also familiar with.

The creature sniffs Will’s chest, his shoulder, then the curve of his throat. It inspects him, gauging his reaction, pressing against parts of Will with limbs he can’t see.

Then, it rears up onto its knees and Will flinches, waits for pain but none comes. The creature bows its head, showing off its skeletal crown.

Will sighs, awed at the sight and overwhelmed. He’s lived in the boondocks long enough to recognize when an animal is presenting, and despite the fear that ties knots in his stomach, a sharp thrill makes his fingertips twitch. He doesn’t know what this thing is, or what it wants, but it’s just as curious as him.

The scent of juniper and pine fills his nose, and he breathes it in deep.

Will reaches out to touch the antlers, flinching at how hot they suddenly feel against his fingers. The creature remains unmoving as his touch eventually grows bolder, pinching the lower tines and rubbing them between thumb and forefinger. They’re smooth enough to ignite static that courses all the way up to his elbow.

Certain that he won’t be harmed, Will wraps his hand around the base of one. He tugs to the side and the creature doesn’t resist, allowing itself to be moved. Will does the same to the other, and is amazed when he’s allowed to do so.

A heady sense of control settles low in his gut, arousal creeping up his thighs, making him hard in his boxers. Will can manipulate this thing, bend it to his whims, and it would allow him. It could kill him at any moment it wants, but not like this, not when he’s rubbing away, exciting it.

Will licks his lips, fisting the base of its antlers until the creature shakes its head, forcing him to let go.

He gasps when it charges forward, pinning him to the bed in a cage. His heart quickens until Will assimilates that it’s only a display. Will demonstrates his power, the creature does so in turn. He nods his head in understanding, still unable to muster his voice.

The creature lifts its head to nudge it against Will’s side in a request, and his mouth goes instantly dry.

It waits with the patience of the dead until Will makes up his mind, and willingly rolls onto his belly.

He kneels, pushing his boxers down his legs and spreading his knees as far as they can go.

The air in the room is alive, depriving Will’s lungs of oxygen. Breathing becomes difficult, his body trembling, but that doesn’t stop him from lying his head on the pillow and arching his back. Will’s cock hangs heavy between his legs, dribbling onto the sheets.

Velvet drags up his back as the creature carefully settles into a mounting position, and Will’s nails dig into the pillow under his head as he waits, and waits. He’s scented, molded by the body above him, before he’s taken.

Will clenches his jaw when a burning cold shaft pushes into him, stretching him past the point of pain until he only sees bursts of color behind his eyelids. He gasps, tries to get away, but he’s pinned in place, the creature taking what he was allowed and Will unable to do a damn thing about it.

The process goes on forever, the creature above him deathly quiet even while it settles, what pass as thighs pressed flush against the back of Will’s legs. He’s impossibly full, _satisfyingly_ so, and Will is horrified at himself for thinking it.

That he would let this thing do this to him, roll over and let it fuck him. That Will is getting off to this twists sick at his core, balls growing heavy and cock weeping steadily. His mouth is open, spit pooling on the pillow as he makes tiny noises wracked with want.

He has to put a stop this, but then the creature moves and Will is howling his mixture of searing pain and blinding pleasure. The thing ruts into him, uncaring of the damage, seeking singlemindedly what it came here to get. And Will takes it. Oh, he _takes_ it and whimpers at how good it feels.

Black seeps through his fingers, into the corners of his eyes and up his nostrils. Ink fills his mouth until he’s throwing his head back and growling for more, desperate to be taken all the way, until he’s bursting on a cellular level. He wants teeth on his throat, warm slick down his neck as he’s fucked within an inch of his life, the monstrous phallus inside him pulsing hot and growing thicker.

Will desperately grasps for that animal instinct, for that moment where it all falls away and it’s just this.

He works himself back as best he can, added weight making him sluggish. Will feels liquid, about to seep through the cracks in the walls, but also fire, about to consume every living thing that surrounds him. 

The creature behind him pushes harder, until Will is spilling over his stomach, all sound robbed from him. Even then he’s pinned to the bed, shocked gasps of delight ripped from his mouth as the creature’s cock pours into him, its base swelling well past agonizing.

It doesn’t stop, simply refusing to, and Will wouldn’t ask it to stop, even with a voice.

When everything does ease, a slow lull in activity until the room around him ceases to exist, Will opens his eyes to the parlor. 

Above him, however, is a sight that seizes up his core until it is heavy as stone.

Acutely aware of his wakefulness, wisps of sleep gone from the corner of his eyes, Will has no way of explaining the thing that is hunched over him, staring sightless. The horned beast doesn’t emanate the same enticing aura as it did within his dream, making Will feel violently ill as suffocating pulses of maliciousness roll off its rubbery skin.

It doesn’t move, and it doesn’t breathe. It’s stillness scrapes up madness from where it lurks hidden, shadows caving around it as if begging to be spared.

Will tries to swallow, tries to reach for the gun under the couch he’s sleeping on without giving away his intention.

The creature jerks away in a movement that is distinctly animal, like a stag that’s been taken by surprise and walked into a corner. It staggers to its twisted legs and makes for the parlor door, its proportions impossible, making sounds so low yet shatteringly loud in Will’s ears.

Out of eyesight, Will scrambles to his feet. He grabs his gun, jacket, and runs after it.

Plowing through snow, he pays no mind to the night sky or the figures he can almost see walking out the corner of his eyes. He’s incensed. Fear gives way to ire, burning blindly in every fiber of his being at the violation that has just transpired. Dream or not, he’s done.

Will keeps catching brief glances of a shadow here, a moving branch there. It plays its game the same way it always has, luring Will deeper, past boundaries both set and unset. The moonlight hides it until there’s no longer any source for it, and even then, darkness aids Will in a way that’s mocking. Enough for a silhouette, but not enough for a clean shot.

He walks briskly over roots, tries his best to keep the lower branches from cutting his face. His sight gone, he relies on scent, the creature’s smell pungent.

Gun up, Will tries to listen. He can still hear it, a faint, hollow breathing that echoes in his ears. He tries to follow the sound, but quickly discovers that the tracking method is futile. Near or far, the sound doesn’t change.

The frigid air feels stale, the single jacket seemingly enough to defend against the breeze of a snowy night.

Will stops walking with his gun held limply at his side.

He’s suddenly and very keenly aware that there isn’t a monster, the mulch beneath his boots doesn’t rise and fall as the forest around him breathes. He has no recollection of putting on shoes, and neither does he recall making a conscience choice in regards to crossing the treeline at all.

Hopelessness wails from within, thrashing and choking with the understanding that he’s no longer in control of his actions. As much as he subconsciously wants to, his mind grasping for far-fetched stories and boggling occurrences, he can’t blame this loss on supernatural forces. He can’t run, not again.

Will looks around the barren forest, skeletal trees concealing nothing but a natural play of light and shadow. What he smells is nothing but decomposition and decay, duff concealing an animal carcass not far from where he stands. It’s made less of a stench because it reminds him of home.

The ghostly image of a man isn’t enough to deter him from turning back, even with the absence of a trail. If he gets lost, then so be it. Better to die at nature’s mercy than butchered by a knife.

Lethargy sits at the end of his limbs like lead, making the hike back every bit as miserable as possible. His knees are weak, his back sore, and Will clenches his jaw when he recognizes the symptoms for what they are. He can even feel slickness running down his legs.

Screaming might shatter him, blow him away like dead leaves. Lashing out will help no one, not even himself. And so, just as he did during his childhood days, Will sucks it up. He clamps down on the empty desperation that makes bile build at the pit of his stomach. He will continue to hold his pieces up and keep the delicate structure from crumbling in on itself just yet. All he needs is a little more time, more steam to close the case and go home, to his dogs and his solitude.

He tries his hardest to ignore the man who keeps stride with him, a line of trees between them. Will trains his eyes ahead, unwilling to look upon the dozens of bulletholes he knows litter the apparition’s chest. He doesn’t deny their presence because he put them there, each and every one of those entry wounds a product of his unsteady hand.

Will doesn’t shy away from the ghost of Garret Jacob Hobbs because he killed him, he averts his eyes because he enjoyed the way the gun vibrated in his hand, how he had held power and choice within his palm and finger. Will took perverse pleasure in every jolt and jerk Hobbs’ chest had made as he emptied his clip.

Will looks away because the only regret he has is that he hadn’t taken longer to drain the life from him.

***

The crime scene is unremarkable.

Local law enforcement had asserted they had everything under control, and they did, but Jack insisted Will take a look. Nothing but a mangled body in a bathtub. Three clean incisions, sliced carteroid. A quick and easy kill, nothing outstanding.

“Maybe this town isn’t as idyllic as they made it sound,” Will tells him as he steps aside, mindful of the forensics team.

“This isn’t a petty criminal.” Jack pointedly glares down at the body. “Maybe it isn’t _The Most Magical Place on Earth_ , but all reported homicides in the past five years involved a gun and domestic disputes.”

“ _Reported_.”

“You’re saying our guy had nothing to do with this.”

“There’s no theater, no presentation, no elevation of self. Whoever this person was, they were insignificant. Have a look around. I bet you’ll find something missing in the house. Probably owed someone money.”

Will removes his glasses to rub away the tiredness puddling in the corner of his eyes. He’s exhausted, skittish, and the last thing he wants to do is immerse himself in a scene when he can barely stay awake.

He walks out of the house shortly after and makes a beeline for the SUV. Jack follows after several minutes and gets behind the wheel.

“You altered the profile,” he says, staring out the windshield.

Snow continues to fall, settling heavy over red tiled rooftops and cars. The valley beyond the tiny village is split between dry trees and muddy trails left behind by wildlife, and further still, the massive mountain chain and endless acres of Castle Lecter beckon Will like a siren’s song.

“The fairy-tale settings are a trope within a large range of aesthetics,” Will says, resting his head against the headrest. “He doesn’t limit himself to _just_ that. The man’s an artist, and restriction would only kill his muse.”

Jack takes the information in, slowly nodding as his taps his leather clad thumb against the faux-leather of the steering wheel. “No one as obvious as an actual artist.”

“But someone clearly interested in the more refined aspects of life. Someone with social standing, with a penchant for travel. Collectors, historians, musicians…” Will frowns. “Poets.”

A whole deluge of possibilities floods his head in an instant, pieces fitting together with a satisfying click. It all makes little to no sense, prompting Will to refrain from putting forth any names yet. He won’t destroy an innocent life for a hunch.

It may have potential, but stepping back, the puzzle looks askew despite every piece slotting perfectly into place.

Whatever it is, it sits like an itch Will can’t reach.

Jack starts the car. “How’d you come to that conclusion?”

Will knows that tone well. Unwilling to get into an argument, he clamps down his temper. “I looked at the evidence from a different perspective.”

“That walk through the woods help?”

“It cleared my head,” Will lies, looking out of the window as the village leads into a bigger town.

The past several hours have been chaos.

Jack had come up to the castle a little past dawn in search of Will, the crime scene having been called in thirty minutes before he makes the drive over. Panic ensued when he was nowhere to be found. The castle had been searched, the courtyard scoured high and low, until finally Price found him sitting in the greenhouse. He was near hypothermic, and with no recollection other than walking through the forest for no reason.

Will is well and thoroughly spooked, even while doing a bang-up job at hiding it.

“I want you to tell me if there’s something wrong,” Jack says, his tone softening, which in turn makes Will tense up. “Anything you need to say, whenever you need to say it.”

Those same exact words had left his father’s mouth many years ago, on a fishing boat off the coast of Biloxi. Will, wide eyed and hurt, had told him everything that could be categorized as wrong. His father had listened, but he didn’t reply. Twenty five years later, Will’s father still hadn’t said much of anything.

Jack’s heart is in the right place, always has been. A man made of bedrock, who pushes only so far as he knows he can, and then nudges a little more. Jack’s paternal instinct borders on _tough love_ , as opposed to his father’s _absent love_ , because even if Will never went to bed on an empty stomach, his old man had never been the kind to hold his hand.

“How’s your wife?” Will deflects as best he can.

“Holding on. She’s tough, stubborn. I mean, she’s been married to me all these years.”

Will waits several moments before he asks, “How long have you known Detective Pazzi?”

Jack’s grip on the wheel tightens. “Whatever you’re thinking right now, you’re way off the mark,” he warns, narrowing his eyes.

Will has met Phyllis Crawford once, when he had gone to visit her at the hospital when she was first diagnosed with terminal cancer. He had gone out of respect for Jack, but ten minutes in her presence had lit up a kindness in Will he thought long gone. For someone who seemed so fragile on that hospital bed, she had grinned and joked and thanked Will for the flowers. 

“I’m not judging,” he says, yet another lie.

Jack sniffs, a loud sound of distaste. He seems to be thinking really hard about something, and whatever he’s about to say next, Will has a feeling he is not going to like it.

“The three of us met when I was stationed in Italy. I was army, she was NATO staff, he was a rookie police officer.”

The fondness of his words is enough to drive it all home for Will, and his only response is an “Oh.”

The corner of Jack’s mouth tilts into a lopsided grin. “You asked for it.”

“That’s more than I needed to know.”

“Shouldn’t have butted in.”

It’s a two hour drive until they reach the town they have settled in, and once Jack reaches the intersection between the village and the castle grounds, Will asks to be dropped off at their original lodgings.

“I need a real bed,” he offers, hoping Jack won’t press. He’s sneezed so much this past week, the entirety of his body has gone sore, especially his back.

“And no supervision?”

“I’ll lock myself in.”

Jack turns onto a gravel road that leads them to a small, locally owned motel. The two floor building is as foreign as everything around them, but the log walls are oddly reminiscent of the American Midwest. The parking lot is just as empty as it had been when they first arrived.

Jack locks the door before Will can get out.

“I’m in your corner,” he says, fixing Will with a stern look.

“Are you?”

“Sticking together is our best bet. We watch each other’s backs.”

“It’s just for a night, Jack.”

“Zee and Price getting to you?”

“I’m not ten.”

“Then why? Tell me why you won’t go back tonight. Losing your nerve is not something you do.”

“Have you ever gotten wasted and woken up with a huge blank where an entire night should be? Well, try that, but without the getting wasted part. Try opening your eyes in the middle of a freezing forest with nothing but the clothes on your back and an armed gun. Tell me if I need any other reason to not want to go back to that place!”

Jack holds up his hands. “So you had an episode.”

“It wasn’t--” he drops off, running a frantic hand over his face. “I don’t _feel_ sick.”

He did, before last night.

It’s partly the reason why he needs to spend time away.

“This is a bad idea.”

“When’s that ever stopped me?” Will retorts, manually disengaging the lock and opening the door. “I’ll check in tonight, either with Katz or Lass, then again in the morning.” He shuts it and walks away before he can get a reply.

***

Jack cares, in his own brusque way, but that didn’t stop him from throwing a coat over Will’s shoulders and dragging him to the car for a two hour drive. In a way, he is grateful for the distraction, saving him from wallowing in the grief that he can’t exactly remember what happened last night.

But now he’s alone in a quiet room that has been untouched since first checking in. His luggage is in a corner, propped open against a wall and otherwise unobtrusive. One of his thicker jackets is still strewn over the made bed, along with the clothes he had worn on the flight. He had traveled light.

Will falls back onto the bed, groaning with relief when he’s caught on a miraculously soft mattress. He melts against the cotton sheets that smell too much of bleach, and shuts his eyes.

Thoughts run a mile a minute, all of them unsavory and bloody.

He can acutely feel the dirt under his nails, and wood chips in his hair. The remnants of a serious hike through the woods are all there, but none of them really tell him anything of what transpired while he wandered about. What he does recall is the reason why he ran into it.

Will wearily opens his eyes, slowly taking in the room around him. The sharp edges of the creature’s silhouette is burned into his retinas as an afterimage, superimposing itself onto everything Will looks at.

The dream’s sensations linger.

Exhaustion is what keeps him from hauling himself into the bathroom. His body feels different, forced to change itself to accommodate an invasion. The unreality of it clashes with the true events that occurred, but the line between sleep and waking have blurred too much for Will to identify.

_Dreams often bridge the gap between reality and fantasy._

That entire conversation is ensconced within a cloud of fiction. Will had been aware of the fever singeing through him, writing it off as a fabrication that bordered on hysteria. The name Hannibal would have been easy to come by, probably picked it up in one of the reports. 

The apparition could very well be a symbolic representation of something inside him, a desperate attempt of his mind trying to convey that Will needs to get his shit together ASAP.

For years he had seen Garrett Jacob Hobbs stalking around the wide expanse of Wolf Trap like an animal. He had waited on Will’s porch, patted his dogs’ heads, sat in his recliner in front of the space heater. The hallucinations had led him right to Alana Bloom’s doorstep.

Conscience had nothing to do with it. Encephalitis had been cooking his brain for months.

Right up to the moment where he sat on the piano, Hannibal materializing beside him, Will had been certain that he was relapsing. The side effects were all there, bubbling beneath the surface.

Now, despite the tired feeling in his bones, Will feels relatively fine. His mind is clear.

It terrifies him.

The endless confusion makes it worse.

He should go to the pub and press Antony for answers to questions he doesn’t yet have. He should go back to the castle, clear headed, and see if Hannibal will show up again. He should check to see if the room he often visits in his dreams is real, if the creature is real, if he would be better prepared this time, if it so chooses to take him again.

Will sits up, disgusted at even entertaining the idea.

He brings his thoughts back to the victim in the tub, the incisions so fresh they were still oozing blood. It was amateurish. Nobody worth their time. Likely a fledgling killer spurred on by the sudden burst of grizzly news. They will likely be caught when the second victim drops.

A rumbling stomach forces him to rummage through his wallet, reminding him that he hasn’t eaten since midday yesterday, at least. He thinks about going out in search of a vending machine before thinking better of it, craving something hot and heavy instead.

It’s almost two in the afternoon, but he could really go for a breakfast platter.


	9. Masked From Me

Awareness comes with each footfall over frosted ice. It brings fear of the ice cracking, plunging him into the dark, frigid waters of the lake. He can already feel his lungs burning, then freezing when he can no longer hold his breath.

Death will always come, and he can choose to either live in fear of it, long for it, or accept the inevitable with the understanding that it is out of his control. There is freedom in the latter.

The prospect of death drives humans to greatness, shapes them into monsters, or saints, or nothing at all. One is either remembered for their savage acts of cruelty, or venerated for their acts of kindness. The in-between hardly matters, often forgotten.

Will has no desire to be remembered. His sense of self doesn’t extend past his own being, even as an entity who actively alters the world around him with what he does. Kindness, he finds, doesn’t come from his heart. He’s unable to put his finger over what drives him to save a bird with a broken wing, when another part of him says to walk right by it.

Neutrality has kept him alive this long, though it has done nothing to keep him sane.

He teeters over extremes, wanting to save Abigail’s life while basking in the power of watching the light slip from Garrett Jacob Hobbs’ eyes.

Will is capable of both, and he can’t claim a moral high ground for it without being a hypocrite.

This is where self-preservation steps in. He would kill as much as he would try to talk them down.

Will wonders when he began to think this way when he’s worked all his life to suppress it. But that’s the thing, it happens or it doesn’t. Awareness isn’t achieved by sitting in front of the fireplace and thinking _I’m going to stop being afraid of this now_. Much like forgiveness, and love, awareness either pays a visit or it doesn’t.

In Will’s case, it has stomped so hard that it has broken a ring of ice around him.

He plummets into the water, clinging to the frozen layer of the lake, gasping for air. He scrambles against the slippery surface, his gloves reducing any grip that may help save him.

Sharp wind cuts his face, the cold and adrenaline making for a dangerous concoction that makes him all but useless. His clothes drag him down, he can’t feel his feet, and maybe this is it. This is how Will Graham goes. Drowned, alone, in a land he doesn’t know.

Numbness creeps up his legs and torso, only his arms still feel the stinging cold, but not because they’re outside the water.

Will can’t feel his body as he kneels on the ice, holding the man just below the surface of the water. If the man jerked hard enough, he’d be able to catch a breath, enough to keep fighting Will’s iron hold.

But he holds fast, gritting his teeth, unsure of how he’s able to keep his balance and not fall in with him.

Finally, the man gasps.

Will watches, enraptured, as pink skin goes white. Dark curls move as the water settles. Slack limbs stretch out, the body floating to the surface, but Will doesn’t relinquish his grip.

He waits until the lake crawls back, reclaiming what had been chipped away. Crystalline blue eyes follow Will as the man is immortalized in his icy canvas, an image that is hauntingly beautiful.

Will is somehow able to pull his hands free without effort, looking down at his creation with satisfaction.

Breath fogs before him, the trees whispering sweet nothings laced with awe, bringing forth that shadow that tails Will as his own.

This is his design.

This is all that awaits him, in the end. Either prey or hunter, the choice will visit in due time.

***

The greenhouse bustles with life when the courtyard around it is covered in white. It’s warm enough to prompt Will to take off his coat, hanging it behind a chair. The scarf soon follows, along with his gloves.

Window panes have been repaired, the tables lining the walls at waist height reinforced and polished. Ivy crawls undisturbed on the outside, meriting the use of a single light bulb that hangs from the domed ceiling.

Ceramic pots of all kinds rest filled with fresh soil. Three small spades are neatly aligned by the door, along with shears and other tools Will can’t hope to name.

The table to his left is filled with colorful blooms, and a porcelain pouring pot filled with milk.

“I always come into this thinking I’m wide awake,” he says, reaching out to touch a rose petal. “What sort of witchcraft is this?”

“It has less to do with magic and more to do with skill,” Hannibal answers, transplanting a seedling before setting it aside. “Winters are unforgiving in the Baltics, and it is always best to plan for the worst.”

He’s wearing a suit sans jacket today, the sleeves of his shirt neatly folded up to his elbows. Just as solid as the last time, but sunlight still passes through him as if he were translucent. Bizarre, but it doesn’t set Will on edge as badly as the first two times he came face to face with him.

Will looks to the smaller table in the far corner of the greenhouse, where Mischa sits with a hand-sewn basket filled with carnations. She fiddles and snips them with ease, molding them into crowns.

His greeting is met with a bright smile that quickly turns into pinched eyebrows and a curious tilt of her head. She addresses Hannibal, and though Will can’t understand, he picks up the question in her tone.

Hannibal stops what he’s doing, deliberating for a moment before turning to face him. “How are you feeling?”

Will stares right back. “Better,” he says, looking at Mischa again. That isn’t what she asked him. “Mind if I stay awhile?”

His request is met with a blank look, Hannibal’s mistrust a tangible force that makes Will want to turn tail. Instead, the man nods towards a stool on the opposite side of Mischa’s table.

Will takes it as Mischa continues to watch him, her hazel eyes squinting. She says something, to which Hannibal replies soft but stern.

“What’s she saying?”

“She’s infinitely curious. Past the point of decorum, I’m afraid.”

Mischa glares at her brother, before sighing. “I said that you looked different.” Will starts, blinking wide eyed at the perfect English that rolls off her tongue. Her accent is less marked than Hannibal’s. “Brother says I shouldn’t talk to strangers.”

Flabbergasted, Will nods. “You can’t be older than six.”

“Seven and four months,” Hannibal concedes with blatant pride. “She’s also fluent in French.”

Seven and three languages under her belt. Will feels ashamed of himself. “And infinitely polite,” he says, smiling at her. “I guess I’m no longer a stranger?”

Mischa shrugs, her pale cheeks turning rosy. “There isn’t many people to talk to,” she explains.

“There’s Hannibal.”

“He is my _brother_.”

Hannibal sighs, a mixture of fondness and exasperation. Will, on the other hand, nods in understanding. “Brothers can be fun to talk to.”

She shrugs again, threading a stem and cutting off a piece of yarn to tie it in place. “Do you have a brother?” When Will shakes his head, she tries again. “Sister?”

“I have seven dogs.” After a moment’s consideration he adds, “And a very good friend I sometimes consider a sister.”

Judging by how wide her eyes have gotten, it’s safe to assume she heard nothing past him owning seven dogs. “We had a sheep dog once. She slept with the horses in the stables.”

“Mine sleep in the living room,” he says, shyly scratching his neck when Hannibal gives him a mildly scandalized look. “They’re all well trained.”’

Mischa starts on a second crown, surreptitiously estimating the size of Will’s head. “Your house must be really big.”

“Not really. It’s just us, so we’re all comfortable and cozy.”

“Forgive me for being forward,” Hannibal says, having settled against the table to silently watch their exchange, “but I took you for a father. You have a way with children.”

Will leans forward on the stool, clasping his hands between his knees. “Just me. I guess I’ve dealt with enough children to know my way around them, regardless of age.” He thinks about Price and Zeller. “They’re easier to work with than adults. Kind of like dogs. _Not_ that I’m comparing you to a dog,” he’s quick to amend, earning him a giggle.

“You are a funny dog man.”

“You can also just call me Will.”

Mischa grins at him, looking far younger than her actual age. He watches her little fingers work with the flowers with ease.

To his right, Hannibal continues to stare with the same air of mistrust, only slightly more subdued. The protectiveness he feels over his sister is something Will can understand, but that’s about the only thing that makes sense here. He’s only just noticed that if Misha is seven, there is no way for them to be biologically related when Hannibal looks well into his forties.

“To what may we attribute the pleasure of your company?” he finally asks, placing his hands against the edge of the table he leans against.

Will licks his lips, the gaze sharp enough to pin him to his seat. “Curiosity, mostly. Last time we talked about dreams and reality. I want to know which one it is.”

“Does it matter?”

“To me it does,” Will says, fixing his eyes no higher than Hannibal’s chin. “These past couple of weeks have been strange. I’d like to know whether I’m losing my mind, or if there are other forces at play.”

“You have a very peculiar gift. Your empathy allows you to see what others often miss.”

“Like ghosts?”

“We are not ghosts,” Hannibal says, almost begrudgingly. “I’m afraid I have no answer for what we are. We simply exist, unchanged by time, and untouched by the world. Unseen, until you came along.”

“ _Hannibal Lecter_ isn’t in the records. I checked this morning.”

Hannibal’s smile is chilling. “There is plenty that won’t show on record. War and other unfortunate circumstances made certain of that.”

Will leans back when his back starts to ache. “There’s something else I wanted to ask.” He gathers up whatever bravery he can find. “The reason why my team and I are here.”

“Your investigation.”

“When Mischa saw the photographs, she led me to you.” He doesn’t add to the thought, allowing it to linger between them to be analyzed as is.

Rather than feign ignorance, Hannibal tips his head in acceptance. “Would it be rude of me to remind you of your uncertainty of these encounters?”

“I’m not going to bring you in,” Will says, holding up a hand. “I doubt handcuffs would work on you anyway. I just want to know what happened to Marissa Schurr, and all those other people who died back in the sixties.”

“You’re accusing me of murder.”

“More a person of interest. The term _person_ being highly debatable.”

Hannibal looks away, past the window panes and towards the snowy courtyard. He stands as still as a statue, poignantly inhuman, until he blinks his eyes and gracefully pushes off the table.

Will watches him put a hand over Mischa’s head and tell her something in their native language. She looks up at him with a frown, but nods her head before turning back to her flowers.

“Let’s take a stroll, shall we?” Hannibal says, rolling his sleeves back down and reaching for his suit jacket.

They walk through the courtyard, Will burrowed in his coat and Hannibal donning a light scarf around his neck. Silence stretches out long and heavy until they reach the garden, long dead and buried. A look behind them shows two sets of footprints instead of one, like Will had been suspecting.

“I’m very real,” Hannibal interjects, amused at his incredulousness. “Whether or not I’m alive is purely relative.”

“That’s what bothers me.”

“Not the fact that you’re welcoming conversation from a potential figment of the mind?”

“That too.” Will sighs, digging his hands into his coat pockets for warmth. “I keep telling myself this is impossible and yet here I am with you, taking a walk and having deep discussions.”

“Likewise,” he confides, his eyes crinkling at their corners. “For decades people continued to come and go as they pleased. I would walk by them, and all I would ever get is a shiver or an uneasy look over the shoulder.”

“Folie à deux.”

“Perhaps.”

There is another long pause, and Will is mindful of the sun moving across the sky. “Will you tell me truth?”

“To the best of my ability,” Hannibal says. “Once, I boasted my excellent memory. Now, not so much.”

“Let’s pretend you’re a real person, for my sake.”

Hannibal looks up at the sky, stopping near the entrance of the graveyard. “The Second Great War took all I had when I was still a young man,” he says. “Mischa included.” Standing there for long seconds, he finally breathes. “I left the country shortly after, running from recruitment until the treaties were signed. Florence offered me refuge until I earned a medical degree, and then I returned home.”

He goes on, speaking mechanically, as if the subject is far too raw to recount without caving into its horrors.

“I returned to a place much darker than the one I had left behind.”

Will ventures a look into eyes that reveal nothing. A dead stare that only spells out insatiable hunger. “I don’t believe you.”

“Nor I you,” Hannibal confesses, fixing his vacant stare on Will. “If not a father, then a mother.”

Will shakes his head. “What?”

“The girl you see in Mischa’s place.” The distance between them is closed in three easy steps, Hannibal towering over Will with the few inches he has on him. He looks down at Will’s stomach, his gaze settling like an alarmingly warm touch. “You carry her with you, whoever she is, daughter or not.”

Rather than step away, Will stares unblinking. There is no room for indignation here, only more of the same dull ache that makes him feel far too old for his age.

Hannibal peers at Will with the same clinical detachment of a doctor. “You _resonate_ ,” he says, “like a song played out of tune. Part of me wishes to fix that dissonance.”

Will swallows around the tight knot in his throat. “I’m afraid to ask what the other part of you wants to do.”

A hand comes up to cradle Will’s chin, angling it from side to side as if to study him.

A familiar spark sets off in Will’s gut, and he immediately takes a step back.

Hannibal smiles wide enough to show teeth, starting a slow and leisurely walk around him. He holds himself tall, elegant, and regal. _Powerful_. Will squares off his shoulder, refusing to be cowed.

He knows this. He remembers the specific charge that used to slide down his spine, the heavy aura that would sit on his bed while he hid under it.

“What the fuck are you?” Blood runs icy through his veins, tearing him between the terrors of his childhood and the creature at his back.

“I am whatever you need me to be,” he says plainly. Hannibal draws a slow breath, taking in Will’s scent with a sigh. “You do smell different.”

“Get away from me,” Will snaps, clenching his jaw and garnering strength from the understanding that he’s no longer a child, and that the boogeyman no longer has any control over him.

“As you wish.”

The words carry in the wind, the image of the man gone before Will can say anything else.

He’s left near the point of hyperventilation, hand clutching at his own chest to shake free the lasting effect of viscous darkness. To his dismay, or relief, a black SUV drives up. Will can barely react when Beverly snaps fingers in front of him, knowing better than to touch.

“Will, what’s wrong? Will, hey!”

He shakes his head, taking an involuntary step back, shaking for reasons other than the cold. “I’m fine.”

“Yeah, and I’m Marilyn Monroe. Get your ass inside, mister. Your face is blue around the edges.”

Allowing himself to be escorted in, he refrains from looking anywhere else other than in front of him. Nausea makes it hard to speak, much less stay upright, but he thankfully makes it to the parlor where he unceremoniously falls onto the couch by the fireplace.

He’s shivering, and this time, he can’t blame the burning in his eyeballs on a fever.

Although Beverly doesn’t comment on that, she stares at him with genuine worry. “Is this an episode? Do you need anything?”

Will shakes his head, curling in on himself and forming a barrier. He doesn’t want to be touched, doesn’t even want to be looked at. He hasn’t felt this helpless since he was a kid. This time, there is no one to tell him that the monster isn’t real.

“Food,” his mouth spits out the word without his brain’s consent. “I’m hungry.” Famished, more like. He isn’t sure how he plans on keeping anything down after what just happened.

Beverly gets him a muffin and prepares two cups of instant coffee. Both things taste like ash, but his muscles slowly unwind, especially with the thick blanket draped over his shoulders.

In here, he feels relatively safe, even while battling the sickening reality that threatens to undo him. Looking out of he window, he can pick up Beverly’s footprints in the snow. Another pair of tracks follow alongside his.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in town with the others?” he asks, shoving the last of the lacking muffin into his mouth.

“Miriam never showed. Jack sent me back to get her.”

“Did you try her phone?”

“She’s not picking up.”

Will closes his eyes, feeling his heart drop into his stomach because he knows, without a doubt. “Shit.”

Beverly nods her head, slowly following Will’s train of thought. “Something fucked up’s going on here. Jack thinks she might be in the forest.”

“Why would she go in there?”

“Why would _you?_ ”

Will has an answer, but he’s certain it won’t be the same as Miriam’s. “Maybe she went into town. This whole fucking place is full of dead zones. She got lost. Got a flat tire.” He rambles, burying his face in his hands the same way he wishes he could bury himself.

“Will?”

He grits his teeth, but holds out a hand from under the blanket.

Beverly crosses the room in a few quick bounds, sitting on the table in front of the couch and gently taking Will’s hand between both of hers. She rubs it, tries warming his palm and knuckles, squeezes his fingers in hopes of grounding him.

“Deep breaths, now, big guy. You’re here, in the parlor of a medieval castle in Lithuania, with your knight in shining armor, also known as Beverly Katz. Your name’s Will Graham, and it’s a little past four in the afternoon.”

Will squeezes his fingers, a humorless laugh bursting out of him. “Being awake is what I’m afraid of,” he murmurs, both grateful and frightened. “Thank you.”


	10. Chrysalis

Gnarly roots manage to trip him only once before he’s able to acclimatize himself to his surroundings. He manages to use the thick cover of darkness to his advantage, slipping deeper and deeper into the forest, undetected by anyone and anything that might be lurking just outside his field of vision.

Will holds the rifle against his shoulder, a hand firmly on the butt. He moves lithely now, mindful of boulders and upturned trees. He can’t prevent leaves from crushing under the soles of his boots, but the sound is swallowed up by the forest’s breathing. The floor moves, heaving, cannibalizing itself.

He might be dreaming, but Hannibal’s poignant observation lingers like a kiss pressed to his nape. Within the castle gates there is no real distinction between sleep and wakefulness. He can’t speak for the others in his company, but for Will, they’re one and the same, and he fears he won’t be able to chalk it up to deranged ravings in his head anymore. Unlike the first time he had succumbed to mental illness, he faces tangible evidence that serves to frighten him all the more.

Regardless of realities, Will pushes on, searching in the bleak light for tracks.

To his left, just past a line of heavily overgrown bushes, Will is aware of the presence that not so much follows, but keeps pace with him. A step for a step, a breath for breath. He can see it perfectly in his mind’s eye, the tar black creature with antlers sharp and ready to gore.

A flower on the forest floor makes Will stop and see. Tracks break away from it, and a few yards ahead, another flower stands in the otherwise dead brush. He follows the trail until the snap of a twig forces him to pause, straining to listen.

He has always been a fisherman, not a hunter. He doesn’t care to analyze what this means, that he’s able to stalk much like the killers he’s caught through his years of service, that he’s able to move within his own skin so freely.

A doe brambles out of the trees to nose at a flower, but Will doesn’t take aim. He watches, admiring the white softness of it, small ears twitching in search of potential danger. It quickly loses interest, going deeper into the forest, and Will follows suit. He’s no longer alone.

“Problem-solving is hunting,” Hannibal says, moving as easily as any animal who calls the world within the towering trees its home. “It is a savage pleasure and you and I are born to it.”

Will only graces him with a passing glance, his attention elsewhere. He’s seen Hannibal’s shadow lingering by his side far too many times to be appropriately troubled by the technicalities of dreams and wakefulness.

He thinks about Beverly’s grounding touch, the conversation that took place before that.

He’s been called a mind-reader by many throughout his life, but Will is never keen on answering with anything more than a scoff. That’s not how empathy works, and that’s not how he does what he does. He hesitates calling it intuition when interpreting evidence and stepping outside the box can only get him so far. Labeling it a hunch would only earn him a firm chastising from his superiors.

Truthfully, Will can’t and doesn’t give a shit about being able to explain what he does so long as he can do so and save lives because of it. He can live with the crippling anxiety, with the self-hatred, with struggling to come back to himself when he’s far too deep inside a murderer’s mind, or an abuser’s, or a rapist’s.

Those minds are boxes Will steps into in order to explore each corner, scratching his nails against them until he can feel it in his teeth.

This is different.

When Will first met Jack during the opening of the FBI’s _Evil Minds Museum_ , Will had turned away with distaste. These people aren’t supervillains with special powers up their sleeves. They are individuals who have gone wrong, stepping outside of society and morality. They aren’t inherently evil, just destructive.

He can’t say the same for the man who walks beside him.

Hannibal he can feel, like the energy between the joints that keep his body going forward. While others are a box, he is a blanket, weighing down on Will and preventing him from moving.

“Curious,” Hannibal says, as if peering into Will’s thoughts. “I can’t shake the feeling we’ve met before this myself.”

Will has felt this brand of darkness once or twice before. The first as a child, when the heaviness of who he was had still been settling into his lanky body. The second time, Will had stood at a crime scene. An entire family killed in their beds, the mother with shards of a broken mirror replacing her eyes and mouth.

Here, the feeling grew gradually. What started as the sensation of being watched, has now progressed to a force he can’t push against.

Will spares him a glance. “It feels like I should be more put off by your company than I actually am.”

Drawn to each other like magnets.

Will puts his free hand to his stomach, pangs of hunger slowly making themselves known.

“Mischa has grown fond of you.”

“Not a common occurrence?”

“Given we are barely given the opportunity to interact with others, no.”

“Is she really your sister?”

“She died when I was very young,” Hannibal says, otherwise soundless. “I lived a long and fruitful life before I met my end.”

“How’d you die?”

“Foolish whimsy.”

“You thought yourself immortal.”

“There is freedom in accepting that Death will come when it pleases and we are powerless to stop it. I didn’t fear it.”

Will laughs mirthlessly, wondering if Hannibal is in the habit of digging into his head without permission. “Just took another chance and you lucked out, huh?”

Hannibal graciously tilts his head. “And however did you meet your end?”

“I’m still alive.”

“Only barely,” he says, not unkindly.

“Why not pick around my brain and see for yourself?”

It’s Hannibal’s turn to laugh. “Reading minds is an appalling violation of personal boundaries, and outright rude.”

“Simply taking isn’t enough,” Will says, tightening his grip on the gun when hunger turns to nausea. “You would rather people spill their guts willingly.”

“So to speak.”

Will tells him about Garrett Jacob Hobbs, but leaves Abigail out of the story. He tells him about the chain of missing girls that soon became a chain of dead girls, of why Marissa Schurr was deemed top priority when Interpol wired in the find. He tells him about killing Hobbs, but refrains from revealing how much he had enjoyed it.

Will confides that he doesn’t understand why the case affected him the way it did, when he’d faced so much worse during his time in the NOPD.

They walk and they talk, mostly one-sided, as Will rants to something that might be a ghost, might be a reflection of himself, or something else entirely.

All around the forest heaves and moves, opening up to the two of them.

“Garrett Jacob Hobbs was but a portent,” Hannibal says, but doesn’t elaborate.

Will makes the mistake of doing so for him. “Someone once told me I was privy to a great becoming.” The words still sit suffocatingly after all these years.

“You are becoming a creature of your own creation.” The words are careful, measured. “Metamorphoses will only continue if you allow it to.”

“Metamorphosizing requires the death of my former self.”

“From fisherman to huntsman.”

Will slows down to a stop, looking at Hannibal’s back until he too stops walking and turns around to meet his stare. He finds no trouble with holding eye contact. “Hobbs a portent, Dolarhyde a harbinger, what does that make you?”

For the briefest moment Will can see the black creature flicker over Hannibal, bending the shadows around him. “Your friend.”

The doe bleats, pulling Will away from the murky exchange. “You have an odd definition of friendship.”

“As odd as the two of us.”

Rifle against his shoulder, ready to shoot, Will pushes on.

He finds what he’s looking for in a clearing, and not for the first time, he clings to the desperate hope that this is just a dream.

***

Miriam Lass sits on a naturally carved stone in a clearing three miles past the treeline.

His watch says ten to five in the morning, and Will wonders when was the last time he slept. He also wonders when the others will stop looking at him with more mistrust than usual, but he figures he can’t blame them this time.

Even Beverly keeps her distance, her hands shaking as she takes her pictures. Zeller and Price go by it with a professional detachment that keeps cracking the more the seconds go by.

Jack hovers by his right arm, staring blankly at the scene in front of them.

Hannibal hovers by his left, unseen by everyone but Will as he speaks, “Laumė was a goddess who fell in love with the Moon. A woman of terrible beauty, guardian of newborn children.”

The fine clothing Miriam wears is not her own. Her hair covers half of her face, hiding an empty eye socket. Face pale and throat blue, honey trickles down the corner of her slack mouth.

Another one drowned. Hollowed out and filled with honey until it poured out of every orifice. Additional tests should be run, but she hasn’t been missing twenty four hours, which makes the time of death fairly recent. 

Another one Will could have saved.

Her one eye gazes at nothing, her body but an empty shell.

Pazzi had done the honors of divesting Will of his weapon, Jack standing by and saying nothing despite no trace of evidence being found on Will’s person. But it’s difficult to explain what he was doing out in the forest at one in the morning, wearing nothing but a light jacket and carrying a rifle. Local law enforcement hadn’t been fond of him since the beginning.

“We will have to bring you in for questioning,” Pazzi says. “I am sure you know this is standard procedure.” Will nods his head. It isn’t the first time he is treated as a suspect, but it doesn’t take off the edge of knowing whether or not they will find something that doesn’t fit. Will has spent so much time lost outside of his head, there is a possibility he might have done something without his knowing.

He watches Beverly talk to Jack, her eyes wide and kind. She looks haunted, the puffiness in her cheeks the only indication that she’s cried at all. Her movements are sure, grounded, and she does what needs to be done. Will’s admiration only continues to grow.

Hannibal walks the perimeter, quietly studying those who bustle about. He lingers near Miriam’s body, looking but not touching, as if her skin could confess her killer’s name.

Hands behind his back, Hannibal inspects the earth around the stone she sits on with a look of indignation. The tip of his shoe nudges a mushroom to the side, and then he walks out into the forest.

Will keeps an eye on him as he circles the clearing, stopping every ten steps or so to nudge at something or another on the ground. He raps his knuckles against ancient trees, the flood lights masking him completely from time to time. 

Once done, he stands by Will again. “Around the world there are forests with circles such as this one, where trees do not grow and other explained phenomena take place,” he explains, gesturing at a dark patch between two oaks. “Songs that spoke of their meaning have long since died, leaving us to ponder who put them here and why.”

Will has heard of one of those mysterious circles in a documentary, but he had no idea there were more. This could explain the locals’ deep rooted sense of superstition, and whether he likes it or not, it could lend a different perspective into what is going on.

The baleful glance Zeller throws at Will has him lowering his gaze towards his shoes.

He desperately tries to cling to the sense of mourning he should be feeling, rather than the cold rage that dances its way up his legs.

“The perimeter has been breached,” Hannibal continues, his frown more pronounced than usual. “Mischa often comes here to pass the time, but I fear it is no longer safe.”

Will wants to tell him _no shit_ , and he also wants to roll his eyes at the bullshit that spews from his mouth. The urge to assert that there is no such thing as magic is strong but dies on his tongue at the look on Hannibal’s face. This is a creature who can lie seamlessly, draw people to their deaths with the understanding that there is no other way, but he isn’t lying now. Concern is quick to melt away, leaving nothing but calculating intrigue etched in those eyes that shine black in the nonexistent moonlight.

“It would be best you don’t wander off on your own, Will. Whatever this creature is, it is growing bold.”

The way Hannibal says this makes Will shy away, suddenly uneasy in his presence. Hannibal had spoken of the Great War, but the way his warning bleeds off his tongue feels like power too long coiled, _ancient_. This is a creature whose territory is being encroached upon, and Will is yet again awed by whatever he may be.

Will wonders if standing in the shadow of a god compares to the feeling of standing by Hannibal’s side.


	11. Snuff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up for some explicit Will/Antony in this chapter. The Hannigram will occur, I guarantee.

At Mischa’s gentle insistence, Will relocates from the parlor to an actual bedroom on the third floor. He isn’t at all surprised that it’s the same one he sometimes dreams of.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he also isn’t surprised to find that it has been dusted, reorganized, and the windows beneath the thick curtains repaired. It’s warm compared to the rest of the old halls, even with the dormant fireplace. There is no stag head mounted over the mantelpiece.

Weary muscles pull at him, telling him that it would be alright if he were to lay back and sleep for a couple of hours. He refrains from doing so.

The days have been long, dark, with no light at the end of the tunnel, and he’s tired.

Miriam’s autopsy confirmed what they already knew. She’d drowned, time of death placed around eight in the evening, no signs of a struggle. The commissar had denied Will entry to the lab, and what he knew he had learned from Beverly whenever she stepped outside to see if he was okay.

Jack, for all his unmovable fortitude, crumbles. Not physically, but by standing at the windows and staring off into nothing, hands inside his pockets. The storm in his eyes has subsided, and in its stead is static. He mourns, and unlike the time he had learned of his wife’s cancer, Will isn’t welcomed to sit by his side in case he wants to talk about it.

Forensics find nothing on him or on the scene, but that’s far from clearing his name. Will’s reputation, unfortunately, proceeds him. These people now have reason to look at him out of the corner of their eyes and think him a killer.

They have also grounded him. The investigation put on hold until legal proceedings are cleared and they are able to ship Miriam back to the States. The BAU goes with the body, but Will stays.

Grief crumbles into resentment. That he won’t be able to give his friend a proper goodbye, that a return home is being denied to him on grounds of an unproven crime. Jack asks if now is a good time to call in Dr. Bloom, to have her look over him, but Will declines the offer.

He is fine. Spine unthreaded and pages spilling from him, but he is fine.

“You can’t just stay in here until kingdom come,” Beverly says from the door, arms wrapped around herself. “We’re going to grab something to eat in town. You should tag along, get some fresh air in those lungs.”

Out of everyone, she is the only one who protested Will’s sudden move. Opposed to the idea of Will heading deeper into the castle, she also pointed out that isolating himself will amount to nothing. Nobody bothered backing her up.

Will stares at the fireplace, idly rubbing his thumb against the worn fabric of his pants. “My presence is bound to kill a few appetites.”

“That’s a load of bull and you know it.” Beverly straightens up, taking an uneasy step into the room that doesn’t go unnoticed. “Everyone on the team knows you’re a little...”

“Unstable?”

“Different. And that tends to give people the wrong idea, but that doesn’t make you a bad person.”

Will’s smile is sardonic. “That’s not what Brian thinks.”

“Zee’s a dick, but his heart’s in the right place.” She sighs, taking the only seat in the room. “We’re all hurting, Will, but we have a job to finish.”

“It’s personal, now.”

“Was it ever otherwise, to you?” For the softness in her voice, her face is hard. “Don’t you fucking dare do anything stupid while we’re gone.” Will wasn’t intending to.

She is right about the case being personal, in more ways that he can count. Nothing other than Marissa Schurr being the Hobbs’ babysitter has been found, and the line dangles without a lure at the end. It eats at Will that no matter how he looks at the picture, or which corner of the box he stands in, there is no definitive connection. Just a random bit of trivia that is absolutely useless. A _coincidence_. Another one of many.

No leads, only a suspicion. One Will has half mind to face tonight.

“Graham.”

“Do me a favor when you get back to Maryland and check on the dogs,” he says, because maybe prying through thoughts of home will open a door he’s missing. “Give Alana a hand with them, tell her I’m eternally in her debt.”

“We’ll only be there a week, and then we’re coming back,” Beverly says, carefully. “The case is still ongoing.”

“I’m sorry about Miriam,” Will blurts out, startling her. He shakes his head, something in his chest crumbling. “I really am.”

The subject was never really discussed between them, but it was easy to pick up on the lingering stares both she and Miriam had shared. Maybe the line had been crossed, maybe it hadn’t, it wasn’t Will’s business, but he can feel the aching hollowness that manifests just behind Beverly’s walls. He wishes he had her ability to comfort, instead of common words that have lost their meaning over time.

Beverly gives him a smile, sad but genuine. “We’re gonna be fine. Always darkest before dawn, right?”

He returns her smile, an ugly thing that holds no joy, and nods.

“What is it that bugs you about this place?” she asks, although the meaning of her question is entirely different.

Will has tried to keep the strangeness that surrounds him to a minimum, carefully avoiding mentioning anything related to the people he sees and talks to. But sometimes things slip through the cracks, occurrences he can’t control or ignore.

Beverly had been there, hovering at the bathroom door while Will tried to send her away so that he could groom himself into someone presentable. She had witnessed his shocked gasp when he looked in the mirror, seeing not himself as he is, but an image of what he could easily become. 

The sight remains emblazoned, of tiny antlers beginning to push out past his hair, black skin crawling up his face. Hannibal stood right behind him.

“Aside from what bothers all of us?” Will says, trying for nonchalant and failing.

Beverly nods her head, looking around the room. “Everything’s always so eerie. It always feels like our guy is right there, too, right on the fringes. As if all the son of a bitch has to do is take one step forward and there he is.”

“Right under our noses,” he mutters, the die cast in his mind.

They join the others shortly after, Will keeping two steps back as he descends the staircase onto the main floor. Hoping to distract himself from the unpleasant encounter he knows is coming, Will carefully catalogs small things that need fixing. One week may sound like a short time, but he knows better than that.

“You sure this is a good idea?” Zeller announces once they enter, casting Will a short glance. “Small town, shit gets out pretty damn fast. Last thing I want to do is get into a fight to protect Graham’s virtue.”

“No one’s putting him under house arrest,” Beverly says just as Will mumbles: “I’m perfectly capable of defending myself.”

Price frowns at the three of them, then turns to look out the window. Night has already fallen. “Think it’d be a good idea to leave this place unattended?”

“As if anyone would risk breaking into _his_ lair.”

Will’s jaw clenches. A kick to the gut would have been an easier pill to swallow. “I don’t seem to have a problem letting you stay here.” He surprises himself with the force behind his words.

Beverly is quick to stand between them, patting Zeller on the shoulder and trying to diffuse the situation. “Settle down you two.”

“No, see? This is _exactly_ what I’m talking about.”

“ _Brian_.”

“What were you doing out there? Full details. I gave you the benefit of the doubt, we all did. But fuck if you think I’m gonna gonna let this slide.”

Price moves to stand next to Zeller, joining Beverly’s attempt to hold him back, not that he would bodily threaten anyone present. Will understands why he’s lashing out, hell, he’s been doing it too, but the jab still stings. They’re co-workers, not friends, and Will steps back with the cold realization that he has grown comfortable in an environment that will only ever be hostile towards him.

It doesn’t matter how hard Will tries to act normal, the stigma continues to drag at his heels as long as he continues to exist within the bubble of the FBI, and every person in his past. Conformity will always lead to this: accusations, mistrust, _fear_.

“This is the part where you try to defend yourself,” Zeller continues, holding up his hands in a sign of mock surrender, twisting his mouth with distaste. “Unless you plan on defaulting into the kicked puppy look, fingers crossed that everything will eventually blow over and let you crawl back into your little hole.”

This time, Beverly smacks his shoulders. “That’s enough or I swear to God I’ll sew your mouth shut.”

“Say you didn’t kill her. Fine, I’ll take it, but you _knew_ shit was off, you _knew_ someone was fucking with us, and rather than watch our backs you go off _exploring_. Look at what that got us, Graham. Two more bodies. Two more fucking bodies and one of them is Miriam!”

Words give way to white noise, to Price bodily wrenching Zeller away to sit on the couch, head in his hands. Beverly stands in front of Will, saying something he can’t hear, but he replies with a “It’s alright. I understand.” Because he does. He always understands and that’s exactly the problem.

Will can’t pick a fight with Zeller because he knows, even if he isn’t correct, that he has the right to feel the contempt that rolls off him in waves. Not one word that Zeller is saying surprises him, because it’s an argument Will has been having in his own head for years.

He could have done better, been sharper, taken better care of himself so as to prevent falling this deep into the thorny vines that draw blood regardless of the moves he makes.

Will turns away from Beverly, who keeps talking, trying to get him to react, but he only smiles down at her. At least, he hopes he smiles, the widening of her eyes looking far from relieved.

Somewhere in the halls of his mind the die finally stops.

Taking his coat from the makeshift rack by the front door, Will walks out into the cold.

***

The crowd allows him some measure of anonymity.

The pub is bustling with life at the late hour, the stools at the bar occupied but for one, which Will takes and staunches all threats from too drunk locals with a single glare. No language barrier here.

“My favorite patron returns!” Antony announces to the beer tap while serving a pint. “And in much need of a drink, it would seem. Bourbon?”

Will nods once, drumming his nails against the bartop.

He watches Antony move with flair, a bounce in his step as he beams and charms all those that surround him. His hair is slightly longer, combed haphazardly to give the impression that he put no effort into his person at all. The gray in it looks more pronounced.

Energy spills out of him with every conversation, every flirtatious pout and serving of greasy food to accompany the beer.

When he finally gets to Will, he slides him a glass, and leans against the bar, head propped up on a hand as he lets others behind the counter take charge of the rest. His grin is sly, eyes gleaming in the dim light. “Sink your problems to the bottom of that glass, Mr. Graham. Unless you’ve changed your mind and are willing to share.”

Will watches his own finger trace the rim of the glass, aware of every heartbeat around him. For a moment he thinks he’s being ridiculous, that there is no way that the man in front of him could have possibly done anything wickeder than perhaps vandalization in the name of art. Antony is frivolous.

He goes to take a swig, but lets the glass hover just over his bottom lip. “What time do you get off?”

Antony’s eyebrows shoot up at that, before narrowing his eyes with playful suspicion. “Really depends on how slow you want to take it.”

The corner of Will’s mouth twitches upward. “No kneeling in bathroom stalls. I just picked up my pants from the laundry.”

Antony pauses, quietly deliberating. “Been wearing mine all day. What’s one more stain?” He pushes his tongue between his lips, considering Will with a hint of wonder and more of that desire he’s made no attempt to hide since they met.

Will gives a demure smile, putting his glass down to convey his intention. “It’s been a damn long day,” he says. “I can wait for you to take me home.”

Antony sucks in a slow breath, his grin melting into an easy smirk as he stares at Will’s mouth. “Will this require alcohol?”

“I’d like to be conscious.”

He laughs, straightening up and taking Will’s untouched glass to knock it back. “The ever responsible adult.” 

Antony clears his throat, addresses one of the women working behind the bar in rapidfire Lithuanian. The woman only stops to give Will an amused look, and to Antony a pat on the shoulder.

He disappears into the back, and Will spends one last moment debating whether or not this is a good idea. At best, they will fuck. At worst, they will fuck and Will would have to find a way to subdue him long enough until the police arrives. Either way, his pants are coming off tonight.

Will sees him walk out of the kitchen, coat on his shoulders and a scarf wrapped loosely around his neck. He gives an elderly woman a kiss on the cheek, then pats the back of another co-worker who comes in to take his place.

Guilt eats at him.

Antony’s charm isn’t the facade of a psychopath. The light behind his eyes isn’t the dark flatness trying to disguise itself as human. That malevolent prickle at the base of his neck whenever he stands in front of killers is nowhere to be found.

This is useless. He’s wasting both their time as he desperately grasps at ends that lead to nowhere.

“Shall we?” Antony says, a hand gallantly towards the front door.

***

It nags at Will, even when he’s invited into the warm house.

If not a murderer, then an accomplice.

Antony’s home is a small cottage nestled daintily between the city and the countryside, a near fifteen minute drive from the pub. Stereotypically British, which causes it to clash with the rest of the world around it. Quaint, charming, much like its owner.

They remove their coats by the door, and Antony leads him into the kitchen. “Sobriety is a very noble choice for a very noble man. How about tea? Coffee? Midnight snack?”

Will takes the snack. Takes too much of it, embarrassingly enough, when he realizes that he’s famished. Antony doesn’t remark on it, simply bringing out dish after dish of leftover sweets. He prepares them tea, and Will keeps a vigilant eye on what goes into his mug.

“Let’s call this dirty talk rather than rudeness, and feel free to not respond. But what changed your mind?”

The tea is warm going down, pleasant, but once it hits his stomach, nausea begins to roll in it. Clearing his throat, Will puts down his mug. “Is a reason necessary?”

“For all the flirting, I was certain you wanted nothing more than some verbal fun. You’re lucky I tend to keep a fresh box of condoms stashed around the house.”

The mere mention of condoms kicks up embers along Will’s thighs. “Lucky indeed.”

Luck is Will having a relatively low sex drive in general, which makes his life easier when socializing is a near impossibility. He has no idea why, during these past couple of days, it has been difficult to keep his hand out of his boxers.

“You alright?”

Will tilts his head. “It’s been awhile since I’ve had a good fuck,” he says, opting for a half truth.

Antony sees right through it. “Sex is a magnificent distraction, no shame in that. Where words fail, let limbs and pleasure continue the conversation.”

“Conversation isn’t what I came here for.”

“Seems like life has twisted you into all manner of uncomfortable positions.” Antony moves around the island to insinuate himself between the counter’s edge and Will. Hands on the wooden surface he leans back, a foot propped up on the lowest wrung of Will’s stool. “Allow me to help you untwist.”

Will works around a swallow when his hand is plucked up from his lap and pressed to the firm ridge of Antony’s crotch. His hand squeezes hard enough to make the man laugh, a little breathless.

“You are far too gorgeous to be American, Will.”

“And I thought Englishmen were supposed to be attractive.”

Antony laughs again, pressing Will’s hand harder against himself, waiting for him to make a move. “Considering that you’re most likely blind, I will inform you that my tongue will definitely make up for whatever else you might find me lacking.”

Will gives him an unimpressed look. “Cheeky.”

“What do you like, hm? Your sense of style says positively vanilla, but I could introduce you to other flavors, if you’re willing.”

His cheeks go warm, but the truth of the matter is that once Will gets going, there’s very little he isn’t willing to try. “Let’s just see where the night takes us,” he says, stomach fluttering with nerves.

Antony pushes away from the counter and pulls Will with him.

They end up against the hallway wall halfway to the bedroom, mouth on mouth, hands touching what they can. It’s feverish, clumsy, and Will is thrilled when Antony handles him rougher than he’d been expecting.

His hands feel _wrong_ on his body, too harsh in their hurry, and Will is taken by the thought that this might be it. The vulnerability that comes from sex when all walls are down, slowly exposing the beasts that curl just below naked skin.

Antony hauls him into the bedroom, lights still off, but they have no trouble finding the bed.

Will doesn’t think twice about the long fingers that undo his pants, reach inside, and grab his rock hard cock.

Teeth find Will’s jaw, scraping against his beard so deliciously he bucks into the hand that teases him. It’s hot, so infernally hot Will feels the skin will melt off his bones.

The bedroom holds a scent, one he’s smelled before, in the forest, on the lake, and Will moans unbidden when pleasure digs itself violently into his gut. If Antony is who they’re looking for, then there is nothing Will can do but ride this out - ride him, maybe.

It’s a humiliating truth Will has desperately tried to bury since young, that danger gets him going quicker than any bad touch. He’s unarmed, under a man who doesn’t belong in such a small town, a man who lies so well Will has been blinded.

“On your back, or all fours?” Antony asks, accent smoky against his ear. “Or would you rather I choke on that huge cock of yours?” Will flips them, pinning him underneath. “That works, too.”

Pants are promptly discarded, underwear hastily moved out of the way, and Will wants to ride him. He wants to be fucked out of his mind but prep would take too long, he’ll go soft and talk himself out of it, so instead he ruts, pushing and rubbing both cocks together.

Antony grips his hips, guiding him into a stuttering rhythm. “Christ, if only I could see your face.”

“Keep talking,” Will purs, hands on his shoulders as he pushes and pulls, toes curling with pleasure.

The darkness of the room doesn’t really matter, because even when he and Antony can’t see each other, Will can see the creature that stands at the foot of the bed just fine. He could recognize the near skeletal form in the darkest abyss, those eyes that shine darker than black peering at him, all-seeing, starved. Lethally sharp antlers that have grazed Will’s stomach with a sense of veneration.

He can feel its distaste and he laughs, delighted that he’s causing the creature some sort of discomfort. Beneath him, Antony babbles away, thinking he’s the one pulling pleasured sounds from Will’s mouth. He lets him think that.

The creature creeps closer, lowering itself until it and Will come face to face, both unflinching, Will holding no fear at its alien features. He stares at it, still moving, rocking and undulating over Antony’s lap, remembering the way it had taken him.

Will doesn’t cower when a long talon rests against his cheek, the rasp of it against his beard sparking merciless electricity down to his cock. He leans forward, tilting his chin upward as if asking for a kiss, and the thing gives it to him.

Will hears himself moan around what should be a mouth, finding that he doesn’t mind it, nor the slick muscle that pushes past his lips. For all he knows it could be the creature’s tongue, or its dick, and Will doesn’t fucking care. He sucks on it, wraps his own tongue around it and tastes berries, meat.

Human hands claw at Will’s back and he hums, enjoying the contrast between human and monster. He’s pinned between both, and it only just occurs to him that maybe Antony isn’t the culprit, and Will is only looking for someone to blame, to project his darker instinct.

The creature makes a sound, or maybe _he_ does, it doesn’t really matter, because Will is close. He’s close, with claws framing his face when they could be shredding him to pieces.

Pain does flare, eventually, around his wrists.

Will shakes out of his haze long enough to realize what it is he’s doing, and in an instant he’s reeling back, hands ripping away from where they’ve wrapped around Antony’s neck as if burned.

He scrambles until his back hits the headboard, arms and legs trembling when the bed moves as Antony sits up, coughing roughly.

It’s still dark, but the creature is gone, and so is his mood.

As cowardly as it is, Will gets off the bed and reaches for his pants. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t have to, when he hears Antony breathing deep but uttering no words that demand apology, or even an explanation. He isn’t asked to stay, no laughter comes, so Will takes his leave without so much a look.

Nevermind that Antony drove him over, he deserves to walk back to the castle in the frigid night air.


	12. I Finally See

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More weird sex and updated tags? I did say this was going to be dark, in case anyone ignored that little note on chapter one.

The smell of tinder and nutmeg waft about like burning incense, filling his lungs, injecting into his bloodstream. It burns its way through muscle and bone, carving corners in his body to sink into. He is vaguely aware of the smoke becoming tangible when breathed in, latching on and taking root.

Will lays on the bed, bare body over the smooth cotton of the sheets. Limbs extended in a sprawl.

The bedroom glows faintly orange, fire stirred to life in the hearth to keep him warm and comfortable. At ease, he notices; unperturbed by the fact that he doesn’t want to move.

He drifts in and out of consciousness, the spiraling ceiling overhead giving way to a starry sky, shot through with lights in colors he can’t describe.

Hands crawl up his legs, their cold touch standing his hairs on end. Up his shins, up his thighs, past his groin, and come to rest over his belly. They don’t press down, following the movement of each inhale and exhale Will dictates.

The hands leave only to be substituted by something heavier, firmer, just as cool and leathery.

Will looks down at the antlers that hover dangerously near his face, at the head that moves along to the rhythm of his body, the face that rests against the warm skin of his stomach. The creature, prostrated over him, listens to his inner workings.

Will touches the tines that burn hot, carefully rubbing their smooth surface against his dry palms. He recalls the fishing rods of his childhood, the branches that litter his farmstead. They feel as they should, Will decides with conviction, and nothing else.

Childish curiosity has him pressing a fingertip to the sharpest looking point, hard, until the break of skin is audible. He holds up his hand, staring at the tiny drop of blood. Will sucks his finger clean.

The creature watches as Will reaches down to trace the remarkable contours of its face. Blood smears wherever he applies pressure along the obsidian skin, and Will stops when he reaches a sharp cheekbone.

One more piece of the puzzle shifts, and Will smiles.

“You can’t _breed_ me.” The creature huffs, and Will laughs. “With all this weird shit that keeps happening, I wouldn’t be surprised if you could.”

In fact, he isn’t surprised, but that doesn’t keep the sick realization from sinking in.

However thin the line between reality and unreality, Will draws a halt when it comes to basic human biology, altered or not. The nausea, the constant hunger and arousal, cannot possibly be attributed to this.

“If I’m pregnant, I’ll fucking kill you.”

The creature purs, nipping the softer area of his stomach with razor sharp teeth. Satisfaction rolls off of it, seeps through Will’s pores, and he wants to be angry. 

It’s absurd, but the way claws shred the bed by Will’s sides, the wet muscle lapping at the flexing skin of his stomach, helps him settle into a truth he can only admit behind the closed door of this bedroom.

Grabbing at the base of the antlers, Will jerks the creature to look up at him, doesn’t ease off his strength until the thing has no choice but to crawl up his body and cage him. 

He can see now with stark clarity, make out the features of the previously hideous face. The slope of cheeks, the arch above its eyes, the soft shape of its mouth. All eerily human, and terribly familiar.

“It’s rude to take without asking,” Will whispers against its mouth, feeling as if he’d float off the bed if not for the solid body above him. “Whatever shall we do about that?”

Dead eyes catch the firelight, and very briefly does Will see their corners crinkle with mirth.

Will flips them, pins the creature beneath him and sighs at its limbs gain an average length. It reels in its proportions, making itself equal to Will’s physical form. Disturbing as it is to see bone tuck into itself beneath leather-like skin, Will is grateful.

He looks down its torso, at the skin that clings to its ribs. Bony and angular, Will thinks he should be running away, traumatized that his words fail to describe the creature in its entirety. An anthropomorphized version of his nightmares.

That doesn’t stop Will from sitting back over its would-be thighs, hand loosely stroking his cock.

His free hand trails down the sexless groin, wondering if it feels anything at all. Will remembers the first time it had come onto him. It had penetrated him with something, but the skin there feels just as cold as the rest, smooth.

Will presses his fingers and gasps, quickly pulling back when skin gives in. Confused whether he’s hurt it or not, he looks up only to find the creature impassively staring at him.

Letting go of himself, Will tries again.

He sucks in a fascinated breath when a finger is taken into its body, moaning at the slick warmth. It reminds him of how a woman feels, and the thought makes his cock jerk. He pushes in a second finger, tentatively peering at the way the groin changes to allow the intrusion.

Will thinks of ancient gods falling to Earth, changing shape to bed humans.

He won’t lie by saying it doesn’t unsettle him, but the sense of wrongness mixes with the animal urge to fuck, and so he does, with his fingers.

The creature still makes no outward reaction, but Will’s hand moves easily now, the passage becoming slicker, his own hips involuntarily bucking forward for relief.

He wonders how it would feel like to slip his dick in, but fear whispers softly into his ear. The last thing he wants is to get it ripped off, but the danger of it makes him harder, precome dripping from his tip.

With only a moment’s delay, Will readjusts his place on the bed, pushing the legs apart to expose the smooth and sleek surface. The impossibility to decipher where his fingers are being taken excites him all the more.

Taking his cock in hand, Will slowly pushes inside.

The creature makes a low, imperceptible noise and Will tenses, fearing retaliation, but all it does is continue to look at him as if made of stone.

He starts up again, moving until he bottoms out, balls pressed flush against the wet groin.

The effort it takes to keep himself up on his arms is colossal. Will sighs as his hips twitch, wanting to get deeper. Sensations unlike anything he’s ever experienced enthrall him, giving another forceful push because it isn’t enough. It’s like fucking a cunt and a mouth at the same time, the muscles around his cock undulating and trying to suck him in further, and Will sobs from the pleasure, moisture beading at the corner of his eyes.

“Oh, fuck. _Fuck_ , this feels so good.” His hips crudely snap forward, desperate for the orgasm that continues to build and build, whiting the ring around his vision.

The creature makes another sound and then it’s pulling away, leaving Will to claw at it, snarling that _not yet_ , he isn’t done yet. He gets a huff for his troubles, but all the creature does is turn around on the bed, reminiscent to Will’s position the first time this happened.

Bringing itself up to its knees, it arches its back and presents, as if saying _if you’re going to mount me, then do it properly_.

Will gets the picture, pushing its hips down until he has enough balance to do what he pleases.

The creature does rock back when Will pushes inside, the orifice tighter, drier, but twice as gratifying. Less a woman and more a man. “I like it like this,” he whispers down at it, because he appreciates the thing trying to find how Will enjoys fucking, but the constant modification of its body makes him uneasy. “Pounding you like an animal.”

He takes hold of its antlers again, holding on tight as he rides it, fucks it into submission.

Will pours his rage and his grief into it, purging himself of every terrible thought and ill feeling until he’s nothing but a blank slate. He gathers everything and fucks it out, drives himself towards pleasant exhaustion as long as it offers him a few quiet moments.

Hand on its head, Will pushes it down and lifts his hips, thrusting faster, harder, until velvet gives way to soft hair and a warm scalp. Will doesn’t stop even when he sees less of a creature, and more of the soft features that scare him far more than any monster ever could.

Thin lips part and Will wants to kiss them.

Fear grows muted with the acceptance of what this means, the equality that is being manifested.

Rather than a meal or sacrifice, Will is allowed to take and claim. It’s him who is devouring with animal instinct and ecstasy, who reclaims control.

“ _Will_.”

More a whine than a word, it’s enough to make him come.

His bones can’t contain him. Feet drag against the bed as he tries to dig in deeper, pull away skin and meat so that he can curl inside, safe in the warmth that engulfs him, that welcomes him. A wordless, soundless shout rips out of his throat and his head falls back, body riddled with spasms as he’s milked, eaten, digested.

Will collapses, but even then he’s still moving, gently nudged to lay on his back. Sweat gathers along his body, come slicks his softening cock, and he lays there, grinning at the dimly lit room and the claw that once again caresses his stomach.

He sighs, sated.

The scent of juniper dances in his nose, works its way back in until the haze settles over him. Relaxed enough to doze, but not enough to sleep.

Something hot presses to Will’s bottom lip and he unquestioningly opens his mouth, letting whatever it is be pushed onto his tongue. The sudden burst of spice lights up another type of hunger, and Will immediately chews, humming around the delicious morsel.

He’s slowly fed, arms and legs useless, but the creature is patient, only presenting another piece once Will has swallowed the one in his mouth.

The creature is once more its unexplainable self. No fair hair, no soft brown eyes.

Will licks his lips, laps at its claws when they slip past them. He closes his eyes and drifts, lost in the careful attention that is being given, as if he were something sacred rather than the broken man he is.

Rather than the sex, the creature seems to draw pleasure from this. Curious, Will thinks, but he doesn’t question it. 

Instead, he eats, and eats, and eats. Teeth break down meat, tear it to shreds until he’s able to swallow it, take it into his gut and separate nutrients from scrap. He’s being given life, life that tastes ethereal, that fuels him with strength he thought himself incapable of wielding. It gives Will power, and he whimpers with contentment, one step short of utter glee.

Opening his eyes when he’s prompted to sit up, he does so with a groan. Back against the elegant headboard, he slouches when a small, porcelain teacup is offered. He picks it up, tips it back, and hums at how good the drink settles in his stomach, as opposed to every other thing he’s eaten as of late.

It’s milk, he thinks, mind lagging. Warm milk with honey, and it accompanies his food perfectly.

He’s about to say thank you, take another piece of meat, until he realizes that something is terribly, horribly wrong.

A small body rests in front of the fireplace. The fan of matted, gold hair is cast in tones of orange that clash with the puddle of black it sprays over. A game of light and shadow reveals the scene by increments, Will’s stomach giving way the more his mind understands.

His first instinct is to reach out to her and see if she is okay, to call for help, but a hand insists he stay exactly where he is. Will tries again, but he’s dissuaded by meat against his mouth, meat he readily consumes until he doesn’t, until he _sees_ what it is that bothers him.

Tiny limbs are missing, the black pool nothing but blood that stains her light blue dress. Even so, Mischa sits up and adjusts her clothing with one hand, turning back to give Will a bright smile.

The hand at his belly presses again, vying for his attention, and a glance down at the silver platter between him and the creature is all the evidence he needs.

Light ringing in his ears and vibrations along his skin accompanies the sharp contractions in his gut. Air stops coming into his lungs, suddenly not enough of it in the room. His blood runs cold as the world opens up beneath him, plunging him into a freefall he can’t break.

Will tries to scramble his way out, the ringing growing louder until he realizes that it’s him. The noise is coming from him as he screams, high and panicked and then he’s choking on air.

Warm light fades into no light at all, an eerie penumbra of white against black clouding his vision. Heat leaves him, cold freezing to the point where his fingers don’t properly work. The softness of the bed is swapped by a hard floor, the smell of rotting leaves and damp earth.

Will is awake, truly awake, and he isn’t in the castle.

He rolls onto his knees as quickly as he can and retches, stomach heaving empty. God knows when he last had anything solid to eat. He continues to gag, spit and saliva dribbling down his chin as he trembles, mumbling a litany of words he doesn’t even register.

A dry sob breaks out of him. Will crawls away from the spot but doesn’t look up from the ground, afraid of what he might see, of who is there. He knows he isn’t alone, the heavy weight of a gaze resting on his back palpable.

“He…” Will gags again, panting his way through it. “He ate her.” He coughs, clumsily tries to clean the mess on his face with his sleeve. “He ate her.”

A nightmare.

Just another nightmare.

“It would have been in your best interest to have left when the opportunity presented itself.”

Will sits, arms barely holding him as he rests his weight against them. He looks up past the canopy of trees, where stars play hide-and-seek with clouds pregnant with snow. His teeth clatter.

“Tell me what’s going on, Chiyoh.” He doesn’t look at her, as she sits on the stone on which he had found Miriam. “Please.”

“You would not understand.”

“Then _make_ me understand!”

Chiyoh’s impassiveness is unmoved by his outburst, her hands neatly over her knees, and rifle leaning against the stone. She watches him, attentively, and it sends jitters crawling down his spine.

“Come find me tomorrow in the greenhouse,” she says, stopping to angle her head to the side. Almost as if someone were whispering something into her ear. “For now, rest.”

Will laughs, high enough to be hysterical. “Awfully sure I’ll still be here by the next hour, are you?” He shakes his head, curling in his limbs when the temperature becomes too much. “You’re wrong. I’m getting in my car, and I don’t care if I have to drive into the next country over.”

“You are welcome to try.” Chiyoh stands up, unraveling a spare coat from her lap. “I am certain you will not make it into the city.” 

She offers it to him, and Will takes it without thinking twice. A cursory glance assures him it’s his. “Are you threatening me?”

“There are other means of influence rather than violence.” She towers over him, listening to voices Will can’t hear. “But violence is all you understand.”

“You’ll shoot me.”

“No. You will make your way back the same way you arrived the first time. Unexplainably. Impossibly. Understand that there are forces beyond what you wish to comprehend, Will.” A stray breeze blows the loose strands of hair over her face, making her appear much younger than her words sound. “And those forces have grown fond of you.”

No other words are exchanged as she waits for him to gather himself, pushing arms into his coat and regaining control of his legs.

What isn’t numb from the cold aches, and he takes another moment to steady his still racing heart.

He doesn’t want to go back to the castle, not now or ever, but he’s too exhausted to tempt fate any more than he already has. The last thing he wants to experience is yet another improbable chain of events that lead him here, against all odds and circumstances, demolishing the last walls of his skepticism.

The taste still lingers on his tongue, the feeling akin to worship on his skin, and Will shudders, mortified by the savagery of it all, horrified that he had enjoyed every infernal moment.


	13. Father of Monsters

Flower arrangements are left unfinished over the wooden tables in the greenhouse. Bunches of calla lilies, hydrangeas, peonies, and gardenias rest inside ceramic vases, unbruised and untouched by the worsening weather outside of the murky glass walls. Twine and fragments of bone are gathered in small, handwoven baskets. A jar filled to the brim with tiny shards of colorful gems stands between a boxful of red chalk and white stones.

Chiyoh sits on a stool, fingers deftly sorting freshly plucked feathers into tall cups in order of length. She doesn’t hum a tune, nor seems to have registered him entering and removing his coat.

Will takes the stool furthest away from her, wringing his hands for the sake of sparking warmth. He watches her work, takes in the trinkets spread unevenly around the greenhouse, and thinks of winter weddings.

“Do you still question the reality of events?” she says, pausing to admire a purple feather that bleeds into a turquoise hue. “Whether this is truth, or simply the extension of a nightmare?”

A pinch too sober for this conversation, Will finds no use in lying. “Admitting to a suspension of belief won’t make this any easier. Though, I guess, it’s a start.”

“He’s spoken to you of dreams.”

Will sighs deeply, willing tension to uncoil from the base of his spine. “And thin lines meant to be blurred. Hannibal doesn’t abide by the laws of nature.”

“The same way storms refuse to fit within human perimeters.”

“Brake the scale only to make a new one. He continues to obliterate them, uncaring of what’s real and what’s not, time serving only to grant him more power.”

“Gathering strength from belief and worship,” Chiyoh says. She’s moved onto sorting out flowers by color. 

Will laughs, focusing his sight on the panes of glass overhead. “It’s twenty-fifteen. The only ‘legitimate’ stories that surround a campfire now are Bigfoot and UFOs.” The trope has well burned itself into mainstream media, and he can name at least two books off the top of his head that embellishes on modern day gods and magic.

“Beings starved when weather patterns became explained by climate change, left to beg for scraps and wander the dusty roads of the Americas.” She drops her hands to her lap. “No one to believe. No sacrifices made.”

Her words weave together to create a moving tapestry within the wide spaces of Will’s skull. There is logic, but only if he ignores the louder screaming voices demanding to tear it all down. “Unless the food source is never ending,” he says, mostly to himself. “Always a hair's breadth away.”

“Fear is the oldest, most primal state anything can achieve.” Will looks at her, then, finding the words foreign on her tongue. “Fear is what drove man to stand on two legs and spread fire in hope of keeping the bad things away.”

“You’re saying that Hannibal feeds on fear.”

“Hannibal was a man,” she says, nonchalant. “Born to this Earth, lost to it, then trapped in it as punishment.”

Will can almost see him lingering at the edge of his vision, just out of sight, but unmistakably present. He has become a permanent fixture, capable of inducing both dread and relief.

It’s difficult to think of Hannibal as just a man, a soul kept from crossing over, as Price so poetically put it. The conviction settles in Will’s body like a second consciousness. “What was he before he became a man?”

Chiyoh’s eyes narrow, her lips turning upward into a ghost of a smile. “Something not even folklore was able to put into words.”

“But you know a little more than folklore ever did.”

“I know of the child born into nobility, with a curiosity amplified by a million lifetimes lived behind a glass.” She shifts minutely in order to place her hands back on the table, delicate fingers plucking at thorny vines. “A young man who loved unconditionally, not his progenitors, but the little girl that came after him.”

An ache reverberates within his rib cage, pulsing in agonizing flashes laced with grief. “What happened to her?”

“Does it matter?”

“ _Yes_ , it _matters_. She was an innocent child, she…” Will stops himself, reigning back the wild kicking of his heart. He tries to start up his words again, to demand an explanation for Chiyoh’s impassiveness, but ultimately fails.

“Does it matter, if this is real or not?”

“He ate her,” he says instead, a vicious snap that garners no reaction from her. “Why?”

Chiyoh’s eyes flick over to him, carefully assessing and frowning at whatever it is she sees on his face. “A man killed her. Hannibal honored her in the only way he felt true.”

“By eating her.”

“He took what little was left of her into his stomach, consuming her essence and keeping her trapped alongside him. Until he, too, met his end.”

Like children faced with a concept too abstract to fully grasp, manifesting their love by consuming.

“His curiosity wasn’t easily sated,” Will says. He allows the whimsical and frivolous to take him, opening windows he’s forced shut since his arrival. “All those people who died.”

“You must understand that blood and breath are merely elements undergoing change to fuel one’s radiance, just as the source of fire is burning.” The lilt of her accent tells him she’s quoting words long since spoken to her, and it’s surprising how well he’s able to tell Hannibal’s words apart from hers.

Words meant less as a justification of crimes committed, and more as mere explanation. A natural progression of matter, an uninterrupted flow of time. There has never been any morality, only morale. What _is_ morality to a being that defies reality, to something so vast and incomprehensible?

Chiyoh rises to her feet in a single fluid motion, her tunic falling over her slender frame.

He watches in contemplative silence as she makes tea, a kit he hadn’t noticed settled on the table across from him. She pours the water, but the pouring pot of milk is set aside, untouched.

“Long dead voices call him the father of monsters.”

Will takes the teacup from her, grateful for the warmth it emits. “The term _monster_ being a matter of perspective.” Steam rises up in opaque swirls that twist and twirl in the cool air, caressing his face.

He drinks, pleasantly surprised by the soft, peppermint flavor. It goes smoothly, his stomach protesting only slightly. Keeping anything down has been difficult to do as of late, mostly during mornings, and he wonders, if not a stomach bug, if the worsening anxiety is at fault for stirring up his health. The fact that he’s craving french fries doesn’t help his case.

Threads continue to be interwoven into knots not even he can recreate with expert fingers and lifelong knowledge. Taking a step back and looking with broadened vision shows him the cosmic improbability of all things transpired, from the little hiccups, to the massive confabulations he can’t begin to piece together.

“No true answer will ever come about what he is,” Chiyoh says. She leans against the edge of a table, a dozen thoughts flickering across her eyes. “His perch is simply higher than ours. In the same fashion that you would not explain yourself to a worm, he will not explain himself to us.”

“Not even you?”

She smiles. “I have no need to know what he is, simply what it is required of me.”

“To guard his domain.”

“Nothing so straightforward.” Looking down at her cup, she adds, “You should take better care of yourself, Will.”

He doesn’t amend that the term _better_ suggests a level of attempt on his behalf. “I’ll eat more leafy greens.”

Chiyoh reads into the sarcasm, but doesn’t comment on it.

***

The sprawling expanse of the Lecter territory is dissimilar to Wolf Trap’s wide, open space in every way.

Flatlands warp, invisible to the naked eye. He can feel it in his calves, the way the hike goes from thoughtless to demanding, then back again.

Mountains rise high and imposing, much like every other fixture in the godforsaken land. Its trees and bushes have gone a deep red, overlaying the almost black tint of bark and stone.

Snow melts too quickly for the cold clime, but Will has learned, the hard way, that asking simple questions will get him nowhere. So he shuts his mouth, lets his mind coast through harmless thoughts, and walks.

Bundled up in his coat and scarf, beanie well past his ears, Will shoves his hands in his pockets and wanders. Subconsciously, he knows he’s looking for something, but whatever that is escapes him. 

He trudges across the dead forest floor, Chiyoh’s words running laps before he could stop them. A lifetime of skepticism pushes at the blatant answers, denying any plausibility her explanation carried. None of it can be real, therefore he must be sick again, allowing himself to become susceptible to suggestion and superstition.

Will follows the sound of flowing water, and is once again surprised by the sheer size of the place. Where the treeline ends, a rocky shore begins.

The water is shallow, crystalline enough to see the bottom. Black and gray boulders frame it on either side, made round and smooth by centuries of erosion. It’s more of a stream than a river, vastly different to the one in his head where summer gold constantly bathes its grassy banks.

The water flows as far as the eye can see, but it’s after a steep decline that the symmetry of colors is thrown off by a moving mass of red. 

Will walks closer, mindful of being spotted. He frowns when the bundle stops shuffling, curling in on itself and staying put as if waiting. And if it isn’t yet another lapse of reality, that’s exactly what it’s doing. What _she’s_ doing.

Carefully making his way downriver, avoiding the wetter rocks, Will runs through a myriad of anchoring exercises that don’t dissolve the image. In the end, the little girl simply feels different in comparison to everyone else that shouldn’t exist. That’s proof enough of her existence for him.

Will slows, making his approach as noisy as possible as to not startle her. He still does, and he holds up his hands to show he doesn’t intend to hurt her when she scrambles back, tearily muttering in rapid-fire French. Will knows enough of it to understand she’s calling for her parents.

“N’ayez pas peur, je suis ici pour vous aider,” he says, casting a hurried look around them. The forest encroaches on either side of the river, deathly silent. “Je m’appelle Will.”

Peeking over her knees, her watery eyes meet his. The hem of her pants are torn, her parka ripped, and she looks as if she’s been lost for more than a day. She hugs her legs close, shivering. “Je suis Florencia.”

Will manages to ask when the last time she saw her parents was, and near where, but most of her answers are clipped, offering no point of reference. 

“Il y a des monstres,” she says, edging closer to the water.

The sound of her crying sends a shiver up his spine, her claim of monsters one he won’t dispel.

Will tells her to stay put, that he’ll be back in exactly fifteen minutes, but her sudden sob roots him to the spot.

The girl reaches for him, her small hand grabbing onto his coat as her head shakes quickly. She asks him not to leave her, so he doesn’t. They walk together towards the treeline, where Will picks her up and rests her against his hip.

He hasn’t the slightest idea of where to begin. Tracking humans should be easier than tracking wild animals. Humans, for one, especially lost tourists, aren’t trying to blend into their surroundings to escape from predators. But hell if this forest plays by the book.

Will takes twenty minute hikes before returning to the river, marking off entrances and hoping the trees don’t go and do something to mess with him. He walks until his calves ache, arms growing tired, but still pushes on.

Florencia asks him where he’s from, how old he is, and what he does for a living. It makes him smile, hearing the words of an adult through the mouth of a child that can’t be over six years old. Her parents are professionals then, most likely in an administrative field.

He asks her questions in turn, albeit roughly, but she doesn’t point out his errors. They talk movies, dogs, and food.

Burgers are mentioned and stomachs growl, but the sound that gets a giggle out of Florencia only serves to make Will frown. They’re both hungry, excruciatingly so, but the gnawing pain in Will’s gut is far more severe than the average hunger pain.

She starts talking again to try and ignore the unpleasantness of an empty stomach; childish things, all topics Will hums and nods his head to. Apparently, she and her family had set out to visit her grandmother, and then they’d gotten separated. After a moment’s silence, her wide eyes looking at him with childish curiosity, she says, “Vous ressemblez à un loup.”

Will laughs, then, unable to help himself. “Then there’s you, with your red jacket.”

He stops once the thought sinks in, the memory of meat between his teeth so sharp he can almost taste the sizzling blood on his tongue. The twisting in his stomach becomes difficult to ignore. Not disgust, but emptiness.

Breathing in deep and placing a hand behind the girl’s head, he protectively tucks her face into his shoulder.

The forest remains unmoved. Trees sparse, soil rancid.

Will turns in a slow circle, looking for the tell-tale signs of antlers or humanoid shadows. He sees nothing, but he can feel the heavy weight of static slide between his clothes and skin.

“You give them back,” he demands, tightening his hold. “You can’t have her. I won’t let you.”

They are, the two of them, alone within the towering trees. Still, Will feels as if he were facing down someone standing in front of him. It’s a solid presence, full and sated and alluring, and Will bites the inside of his cheek to keep it all at bay. Pressure builds at the base of his neck, a hold meant to subdue.

“I said no,” Will grits out, scowling at the desolate path in front of him. “I’m taking her back and calling the ministry.”

Pain flares hot in his stomach, singeing enough to knock the breath out of him. He grunts, hand flying to where he expects to see blood, only to come away clean. His body tries to curl in on itself, to fight it off, but Will grits his teeth and straightens his back.

“If you want her, you’re going to have to kill me.”

***

First responders arrive in record time, along with the Commissar.

Will sits on the castle steps, mechanically answering her questions about the family’s whereabouts, why he had been so far into the mountains, and how he had found the girl. He also does most of the translating for Florencia until an official translator arrives on the scene.

The original mistrust they held for him has worsened to the point where he’s threatened to be detained, and he would have been if not for Jack’s intervention. “Unofficial house arrest,” he says, looking down at Will and challenging him to say otherwise.

“Not like I was going anywhere to begin with.” Will rubs his hands together, watching the people patch Florencia back together. She’s given a thick blanket while the Commissar kneels in front of her, speaking softly while a third person translates.

“Care to tell us what the hell you were doing out there?”

“Taking a hike.”

“And you just,” Jack snaps his fingers, “found her.”

“Well, what else do you want me to say? I stole her from her bed?”

“I doubt these people are in the mood to tolerate sarcasm.”

“There’s a river a few miles south,” he sighs, putting his gloved hands against his cheeks in hopes of warming them. “She stuck out, she was crying, I told her I’d help her find her parents.”

“A couple from Paris who up and vanished like smoke.”

“We looked. Ask her if you don’t believe me.”

Jack doesn’t turn around, keeping his attention on Will sharp. That splinter of doubt always wedged between reason and instinct. “This is out of my hands.” He speaks slowly, tone neutral. “You found Miriam Lass, and you found the girl. Both under circumstances you cannot explain.”

“I explained this one just fine.”

“Not good enough, Will. Nowhere near good enough.”

They are approached by a young officer who asks Will more questions, takes her time jotting them down. At least she’s professional about it, making her way through fairly good English and keeping her attention on the notepad in hand.

“Two weeks,” Jack says once she’s out of earshot. “I’m pulling whatever it is I have to pull, but in two weeks you’re taking a plane back to the US.”

Will nods with the distinct feeling he’s being lied to. Home is a foreign concept now, no closer than they are to catching Marissa’s killer. The estimated time of return becoming longer and longer as unpleasant events continue to unfurl. “Give the Lass family my condolences.”

After a notice that the ministry will try getting in contact with him in the case of the girl’s parents, Will is left alone. People hurry about, itching to get off the grounds as quickly as possible. He remembers the feeling, and wonders when it ceased to be. How the heaviness has gone from terrifying to _being_. Another part of life, like breathing.

Beverly joins him at one point, says that Antony had stopped by a few hours earlier. He hadn’t explained why and refused to stay until Will returned.

Maybe he should focus on him again. Dig to see how deep the well goes, if the floor is muddied and littered with bone fragments.

“What if there is no answer?” Will asks.

“You’re gonna have to be more specific.” Beverly peels back the wrapper off a stick of beef jerky, rips it in half, and hands it over. Will takes it without a second thought. “I sincerely hope you’re not talking about the murders.”

The jerky tastes simultaneously like the best damn thing he’s ever eaten and chemical scrap.

“I don’t think the forest wants to tells us what happened to Marissa, or Miriam, or anyone else it’s devoured through the years. It won’t, because it doesn’t have to.” Will focuses his attention on the fountain top that towers well past the graveyard hedges. Dusk is falling, and already fireflies dance around it. “It’s a lure.”

“Usually I’m real good at this, but I don’t follow.”

Will shakes his head, dismissing her.

It makes perfect sense, really. Perfect, _horrifying_ sense.

This isn’t about serial killers, castles, or missing girls. This is about him, right here and right now, regardless of the means utilized to get him here. The connection between Schurr, Hobbs, and now Lecter is a thin red string that has been knotted, twisted, and split into impossible scenarios that have delivered Will to the weathered steps of the castle.

There will be no answer until he has given what is demanded of him, and what better opportunity than this? Alone for two weeks, stranded in a foreign land with nothing but ghosts to keep him company.

“The boys thought about catching dinner before heading out tomorrow,” Beverly says, breaking into his thoughts. “I can see you’re hungry.”

Will pulls the finger he’s nibbling on away from his mouth, unaware of what he’d been doing. “I’ll tell Antony to stop by with a pizza.”

“Right.” She gives him a bemused look. “All this awful bullshit aside, how you holding up?”

He shrugs. “I’m fine.”

“You look like you could use some sleep.”

“Or a burger.”

“Two burgers.”

Any other time, Will would laugh. “I will continue to be fine while you’re away,” he assures her, sensing her unspoken worry. “Suspension from the case until I’m back on Jack’s leash means long, uninterrupted hours of sleep.”

“Don’t hole yourself up. Go out and visit your boyfriend every once in a while.”

“It’s nothing like that.”

“Oh, come on. You’re good at lying, but not that good.”

“Bev.”

“I don’t know what that man’s done to you,” she says around a laugh, “but you’ve got a bloom.”

Will scratches his chin, doesn’t immediately reply. This is the last thing he needs. “Next, you’re going to tell me that my eyes are sparkling.”

“They kinda are,” she says, bumping her knee against his. 

He appreciates the light-heartedness, her constant attempts to keep him above the surface. “Take a break,” he tells her, overwhelmed with the urge to keep her as far away from the grounds as possible. “I promise I’ll be on a plane home before you know it.”

Beverly’s gaze is unrelenting, no doubt analyzing every word and the meaning behind them. She nods, accepting Will’s choice. “You better, or I’ll kick your ass all the way back to Quantico.”

“Noted.”

“Take care of yourself, Will. Please.” Patting his knee, she gets up and swats at her jeans. “I can’t stress that enough.”

Taking her extended hand, he allows to be pulled up. Night is falling, and the cold is once more seeping through his clothes.

He follows Beverly into the castle, clarity reaffirming each of his steps.


	14. You’re Light in a Lie

The kitchen is fully functional when Will steps foot in it. The crumbling walls and broken glass have been swept and repaired, furniture mended, and pantry stocked. Gourds and vegetables lay nestled in suspended baskets. Heads of garlic hang from the opened window, along with wreaths of decorative flowers. On the opposite wall, an herb garden is in full bloom.

It’s been two days since his co-workers got on a plane. Two days in which he barricaded himself within his assigned room in hopes that he could wait it out, that he could wake up. Instead, the uncomfortable reality of the situation only sunk further into his bones. He isn’t dreaming.

Hannibal’s back is to him as he moves across the floor with an apron tied around his waist, humming a foreign tune. “Hello, Will. How nice of you to join us.”

The domesticity he witnesses is far more bizarre than any questionable experience to date. “Smells delicious.”

“Didžkukuliai,” Hannibal says. “Potato dumplings stuffed with beef, mushrooms, and cheese. Served in a broth and garnished with chives, spirgai, minced onions, and pork fat.”

Hunger drove Will out of his self-imposed imprisonment, but not even the decadent smells that waft through the kitchen inspire him to sate his appetite. Mischa is nowhere to be seen, and the truth of what Hannibal did long ago still lingers.

“The beef looks pretty fresh for winter.”

“Chiyoh is known to work wonders when it comes to fetching ingredients. It was her suggestion that inspired me to prepare you this meal.”

Will clears his throat, dramatically touching his chest. “For me?”

“She insists you aren’t feeding yourself well enough.”

“That’s what Mischa said.” At Hannibal’s distracted nod, Will presses. “What do you think?”

“I think that it is a pleasure to be able to perform once more.” He finally turns to Will, a small smile gracing his lips. “It truly is no trouble.”

“No trouble to fatten me up and serve me up, huh?”

“You’re certain someone is going to try and eat you.”

“I’m ninety percent sure it’s you.”

“Perhaps.” Hannibal sets aside the pots over the outdated stove, and reaches for a saucepan. “But I have no intention of doing so soon.”

Will leans against the granite countertop, crossing his arms over his chest. “As long as you make it quick.”

Pausing, Hannibal considers Will with a curious expression. He reaches for a towel, wiping his hands clean as he ponders. “You have aptly guesstimated that there are dangers outside these walls other than me.”

“I’ve been doing plenty of thinking,” Will concedes, watching Hannibal’s hands as they start working again. They move with ease born from experience. Even the pinch and flex of his fingers bleed elegance and refinement. “There really is no way to fight my way out of this. No, I’m not surrendering, but I was wondering if I’m better off throwing in my lot with you.”

“You are insinuating the existence of forces capable of overpowering me.” His amusement is evident in the corner of his eyes. “Hoping that, if it were ever to come to an exchange of blows, so to speak, I emerge victorious.”

“To our mutual benefit,” Will says. “You’re my shield, I’m whatever you want me to be.” His father warned him against striking deals with the Devil, but Will feels particularly careless. “So long as you swear to make my death quick.”

“Not a week ago you were adamant to keep fighting. Now, you easily lay down your life. It sounds exactly like surrender.”

“You didn’t bring me here, something else did. Otherwise you wouldn’t have been surprised by the fact that we can interact.” Will pushes away from the counter, plucking a pomegranate from the fruit basket by the window. Outside, he spots Mischa and Chiyoh sitting on a snowy bench. “I don’t give a shit about how powerful you or others think you are. Whatever is out there, past that treeline? It _blinded_ you.”

Hannibal continues with his cooking, unfazed. “Let them come.”

“Because neither of us has anything left to lose,” Will adds, shrugging while prying open his fruit. Red juice stains his hands.

If not a nightmare, then he is surely stuck in purgatory, bartering his life in hopes for the best possible outcome. Only Hell could possibly await him on the other side, so all Will can really do is buy time.

“I don’t really care what you are,” he says, “ghost, god, whatever. I don’t care to understand why I’m here, or why time seems to stretch on longer than possible.” Will licks the pomegranate’s core. “But there is one thing I want to know.”

Hannibal looks at him, infinitely curious. “Yes?”

“The horned creature.” He hesitates here, once more overwhelmed by the possibility that he may be wrong. That maybe, as an act of hostility, he was used. At this point, he would much rather it be Hannibal than otherwise. “Don’t tell me if it was real or a dream, but tell me whether or not it was you.”

No answer is offered until the food is served over a grand table in a dining hall, with candles lit and wine served. Will is given a glass of water instead, only adding to the previous enquiry.

Hannibal sits at the head, Will by his side. They both eat, silverware quietly chinking against the fine porcelain plates before them.

“A stag will spit water into the hole a snake hides in,” Hannibal says, his thumb caressing the stem of his wineglass. “It draws the snake out with its breath, and then tramples it to death. Much like a mongoose.” He takes a measured drink before looking to Will. “Christians once believed stags represented God. Symbols of spirituality and grace.”

“They are also hedonistic and lustful creatures,” Will retorts, focused on his meal. The flavors burst in his tongue, but no matter how much he eats, he can’t seem to be satisfied. “Two sides of the same coin.”

“I apologize,” Hannibal says, “for such rude behavior.”

“You could have just asked.”

“You had the opportunity to push us away.”

“I didn’t want to.” The confession is heavy on his tongue, as uncomfortable as the feeling in his gut. “As masochistic as it may sound, I needed some time outside of my head.” He sniffs, taking a drink from his water. “Was that why you came a second time?”

“You called to me that second time. I didn’t have the heart to deny you.”

“Or the libido.”

Hannibal smiles. “The experience was unique.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Was it enjoyable?”

Will’s cheeks warm. “Let’s not discuss this over dinner.”

“Of course.”

“I’m more worried about whatever is keeping an eye on us.”

Hannibal turns to him with a knowing look, the dark brown of his eyes catching and bending candlelight. “You shouldn’t be.” Taking another sip of his wine, he presses his lips together into a thoughtful smirk. “I’m merely curious as to who thinks themself clever enough to play with what is mine.”

***

The weather proves to be as mercurial as his host. One moment icy, blissfully warm the next.

Will steps outside in a light jacket. Sunlight pours down on his face, and the sky is a cloudless blue. The day is far brighter than any other spent here, and Will basks in the airy feeling that carries him down the short set of stairs.

Ease is far from his mind, but interacting with Hannibal has lessened his need to be constantly on his toes, afraid of getting jumped. He can sleep knowing that the horned beast won’t crawl into his bed uninvited. He can walk the grounds without a gun at his hip, certain that the territory has been protected.

The grass below his feet is green. Trees and hedges are trimmed, ivy receded, fountains restored to their original states. The paths have been cleared, and arches have been erected.

Castle Lecter has risen from its ruins by forces Will can’t explain, but has accepted.

By the treeline, Mischa knots together dry vines. She wraps it around every other tree, pinning a white flower at every gap between trunks. It’s a pretty performance that’s decorated with the occasional twirl, and a theatrical bow once she spots Will by the front doors.

“Protective barriers?” Will asks once Hannibal joins him.

“Decorations.”

“Hosting a party, then.”

“I would hope.” He hands Will a small box that is almost too fragile to hold. “This, however, would be for protection.”

Inside is a thin, silver chain, as simple as the charm that hangs at the end. A medallion engraved with a knot Will has never seen, and at the center, a ruby that traps the sun. It eerily resembles an eye.

It’s beautiful, but Will is hesitant to even pick it up. He looks from the piece to Hannibal, who patiently waits for him to make a move. “Dinner and gifts aren’t meant to go after the bedding.”

Brimming with amusement, Hannibal plucks the chain from the box, which he sets aside. “We’ve had a very unorthodox relationship thus far. Why disrupt our tempo?”

Will wearily eyes the charm, reluctance and disbelief still clashing regardless of the headspace he’s forced himself into. “Any chance this will stop what is going on with me, too?” Question asked, he still plucks the chain from Hannibal’s hand and slips it on over his head.

“I’m afraid not. The physiological changes your body is undergoing are unrelated to the hold placed over us.”

“Actually, I’m fairly certain it is,” Will says, pointedly tucking the chain into his shirt. “Had I not been here, this never would have happened.”

Hannibal looks out over the courtyard, at Mischa who diligently continues on her mission. “Worrying about past events is as useless as trying to change them. We are here, now, consciously. What I meant is that the darkness concentrated within the treeline has nothing to do with your condition.”

“Because it’s all you.” There’s a lack of sourness in his tone that surprises him.

Allowing Hannibal to step foot inside Will’s fortress has been both the best and worst idea of his life. The heavy presence no longer feels alien, but welcome. There is a distinct feeling of pleasure that comes with Hannibal’s presence, a strange sense of longing. Mutual understanding has eased the transition from danger to acceptance, and Will feels oddly drawn to the heady sense of power Hannibal seems to emanate whenever he’s near.

On the other hand, Will has let Hannibal _in_.

Placing a hand over his stomach, Will sighs. “You put this in me.”

Hannibal looks down, entertaining the thought to touch, but he doesn’t. He never really crosses that line when he’s at his most human, despite Will’s incessant pushing. “I simply planted the seed. You could have starved it to death. Instead, you chose to nurture it.”

Both literal and metaphorical, Will resents him for it.

“I just want it to stop,” he says, stomach muscles clenching. It never stops. The need to consume, to take between his teeth and bite never eases. It’s a constant, painful reminder that all Hannibal ever did was give him a taste, and Will has been unable to sate his hunger since.

“Two days,” Hannibal says. “If you allow it, you will only need to bear it for two more days.”

Will sighs, leaning his hip against the rebuilt railing. 

In the distance, Mischa backtracks, adding red ribbons to the white flowers as she goes. It occurs to him, finally, once the tiny pieces click into place, that he doesn’t have the whole truth. 

He turns to Hannibal again, lips pressed into a thin line. “What’s happening in two days?”

“A new moon.”

“And a ceremony,” Will says, recalling the weeks of preparation. He wants to ask for what, but the the reason is abundantly clear. Incredulity rears its head, yet again trying to anchor Will to what should be real.

He remembers the arrangements Chiyoh carefully prepared in the greenhouse, and Mischa’s never-ending string of flower crowns. The castle’s restoration, and the beautiful arches.

Will laughs, and it’s an ugly sound. Too tight, too loud. It shakes in his chest. “Don’t call it that,” he warns, because he can see what Hannibal plans to call the event. He shakes his head, understanding that he understands nothing of the forces at play.

“Will?”

“Chiyoh said you were the father of monsters.” His voice wavers, deep and slow. “What’s that supposed to make me?” Hand once more to his stomach, fingers clenching the fabric of his shirt, Will sucks in a lungful of air.

He feels Hannibal step closer, almost touching, but not entirely. He hovers over his shoulder, satisfied that Will has finally seen.

An unholy union, one Will willingly chose in the kitchen. A union allowed to manifest when Will refused to destroy that sickening lick of satisfaction that came with taking a life. Hannibal had seen that, liked it, and cleverly orchestrated this intricate web.

Worst of all, it arouses Will. The idea makes heat pool heavy below his belt, tightening his groin. He is excited. Elated that Hannibal sees the truth of him, no matter how abhorrent.

Looking down at his flat stomach, Will can almost see a swell that isn’t there. He almost wishes there was. “What does that make me?”

***

Firelight reflects on the polished surface of Hannibal’s glass, turning the amber liquid a deep red as it is sloshed about. He holds it under his nose for a long moment, otherwise unmoving.

By his side, Will watches him. His own drink rests forgotten on the table between them, the tea having grown cold long ago. “When the time comes, is there anything I need to do?” he asks.

“There are no rules. Neither is there a specific etiquette to follow,” Hannibal says, finally pressing the tumbler flush against his bottom lip. “At least, not one that directly concerns us.”

“Others will be there.”

“Yes, and it may come as a surprise to you. Consider it a gift.”

“I’m not good with crowds.”

“You will glad to see familiar faces.”

Will straightens up on the chair when the heat of the fire becomes too uncomfortable. He wishes he could remove his vest, but Hannibal had insisted on it upon waking up. Unwilling to be rude, Will suffers through it. “Alright, so I just stand there and you do whatever needs to be done.”

At Hannibal’s short silence, Will feels regret unfurling in his chest.

“I will remove what is inside of you,” Hannibal concedes with a solemn tilt of his head.

“What happens to it?” Morbid curiosity forces Will to listen with rapt attention, a hand unintentionally resting over his belly. Partly, he wants to know what _it_ is, despite the sickening truth that something is growing within a womb he should not have.

“Its fate lies with you, Will. You may chose to grant it life, or destroy it before it has taken its very first breath.”

The idea of giving life fills Will with a sense of surreality that goes unchallenged by the reality surrounding him. Of all things, to be able to hold creation in the palm of his hands stirs hunger unrelated to the physical pangs his body feels. Before him is a chance to right something he never wronged, yet feels responsible for.

“My hands were not designed to hold life,” he says, looking down at his calloused fingers. Against them he sees the ghosts of hundreds of photographs, and dozens of case files. His hands only ever pick away at the threads of death. “I’ve never been a father, but I once had the opportunity to be.”

Hannibal pushes up from his chair and crosses the room, reaching for the bottle he’s left on the desk. “You are talking about Abigail Hobbs.”

“She was a child,” Will says. He recalls her long brown hair falling over narrow shoulders, matted and tangled with blood. He remembers, with utmost clarity, how her tiny hands had reached for him. The fear in her eyes, her frailty. “I killed her father. I thought I could make matters right if I took care of her.”

“Your intervention was what saved her.”

“Doesn’t exactly feel like it,” he says around a bitter laugh. “Not a week later, she was dead. No plausible explanation. Everyone thought I had done it. Snuck into her hospital room and snuffed out the candle.”

“No evidence was found against you, in the end.”

“No evidence was ever found, period. No foul play. She was getting better.” 

Will rubs a hand over his mouth, the recollection of those days setting the hairs along his arms on end. The desperate feeling of hopelessness engulfs his stomach, pulls him into the darkest corners of his vision, but Hannibal’s touch brings him back. A simple hand over his shoulder, and Will is able to breath again.

“I don’t want it to die,” Will says, soft enough to go unnoticed. But Hannibal is there, looking down at him with eyes both endless and terrifying. “Whatever is out there is a threat, Hannibal. To us.”

“Feeling awfully paternal, Will?”

“Aren’t you?”

“Yes.” The simplicity of the word is not an empty one. “But before you are able to protect, you must first be unburdened. Remove the weight, as it were.”

“That’s what you’re going to do.”

“To the best of my ability.”

“How bad is it going to hurt?”

Hannibal’s fingers squeeze his shoulder before letting go. “Plenty, I’m afraid.”

“I’m not,” Will says, watching his back as he turns to face the fireplace. “I keep telling myself I should be. I should be terrified of you, of this, but instead I feel like I’ve been expecting this from the start. The inevitability of all of it.”

“A remarkable thing,” Hannibal agrees. “Never did I intend to stand here.”

“Makes you wonder just how far up the ladder you really are when you’re not getting the full memo.” 

The remark earns Will an amused smile. “Somehow, I doubt the forces outside these walls are anywhere near as powerful as we think them to be. In the grand scheme of things, we are mere pawns undeserving of the attention of the olden gods.”

“Basically, we’re blowing this ordeal out of proportion.”

“Better to be safe than sorry.” Hannibal extends a hand, which Will takes without hesitation. “Now, I say we get you something to eat and then some rest.”

“You’re spoiling me,” Will says, forcing down the upward tilt of his mouth. “It’s embarrassing how easily this turns me on.”

“Being cared for?”

“I think it’s more to do with whatever you _planted_ inside of me,” he sighs, allowing himself to be guided back into the kitchen. “My mood is a constant swing between wanting to eat and wanting to fuck.”

“Not much different from the average person.”

“The average person doesn’t fantasize about eating meat still dripping with blood.”

“Luckily, neither of us are average.”

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://celestialparadigm.tumblr.com/)


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